Walmart, Home Depot, and Deere Walk Into Earnings Week — Retail Traders Are Already Picking Sides
With oil at $109, consumers cracking under $300 tire bills, and Jeff Gundlach calling a rate hike, this earnings week has a lot riding on it
Ticker Ratings
This week's earnings calendar reads like a stress test for the American consumer in real time. $WMT drops May 21st (consensus: $748B revenue, $2.93 EPS) and $HD hits May 19th (consensus: $178B revenue, $16.31 EPS). Both are being watched as bellwethers for lower-income spending — which, per Bloomberg's week-ahead breakdown, is already under serious pressure.
How much pressure? A Jeremiah Babe video pulling 42,000+ comments about people breaking down over a $300 tire replacement tells you everything. National average gas prices just hit $4.51/gallon with Brent crude at $109/barrel, up 10% in a week. Meanwhile, DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach is out here predicting the next Fed move is a rate hike, with his model calling a CPI starting with a '4'. $DE reports into an agricultural backdrop that Bloomberg describes as currently abundant but heading for a food price crisis in 6-12 months as farmers cut planting.
US equities aren't cheap at a P/E of 21 vs. the historical 17-18 average — and if the consumer finally flinches in these prints, the market's going to have to have a very awkward conversation with itself about those record margins.