[Music] Well more and more Shoppers are seeking Out deals after years of rising prices And interest rates and it appears many Americans are flocking to Walmart the Giant the retail giant released its Second quarter earnings this morning Results show Walmart's Us sales Increased 4.2% last quarter with a total Revenue of $169 billion so for more on This I want to bring in Kristen Meyers She is the editorinchief of etf.com And she joins me here in studio 57 so I Have to say I am not shocked because I Feel like we've had this conversation Before that more and more people are Shopping more people shopping at the What do you call them discount retailers Or what would you call Walmart I would I Would definitely call that more of a Discount retailer you're seeing you know Your your Walmarts your targets actually I kind of slipped out and said Amazon But Amazon is also somewhere we're Seeing people like go to for their Grocery for example we were chatting Obiously just a couple seconds ago about How some Shoppers are getting more and More budget conscious but the wealthy You know that don't need to necessarily Be as budget conscious are continuing to Spend but they are also becoming more Budget conscious and so you're actually Seeing them also go to your places like
Little uh the dollar store all of those Places we've seen massive numbers of Folks that you would think would Continue to buy on things like luxury Goods they're also heading to those same Stores for grocery items and for other Things interesting so I you know we keep Complaining about inflation but keep Spending no matter what the sticker says Can we expect other major retailers to I Know have see some gains this quarter it It should happen I mean I don't think That we're going to see that evenly Across the board even within retail Sales they did see uh numbers tick down For appliances electronics for example Used cars these tend to be volatile Categories anyway but we did see less And less spending there on those some of Those big box items those big ticket Items but as you're mentioning really This is part of the reason why the US Economy has remained so strong I don't Know if everyone knows this but 70% of The US economy is literally based on Retail spending so when we go out there And continue to spend spend spend we Continue to keep the US economy afloat I Have personally been doing I think my Part with all of the shopping that I Have maintained over the last couple of Years um and so honestly when us uh Consumers go out and they continue to Spend we continue to see the US economy
Continue to be strong right now the Focus is going to be on the labor market We we we where excuse me where we are Continuing to see a little bit of Weakness uh labor numbers did come in we Saw some initial unemployment claims They were actually lower so that's going To be some good news for the markets There but there has been some weakness In the labor market and that's really Why we've seen so much volatility in the Markets lately and all of this worries About recession over the last couple of Weeks yeah overseas they they really Sort of freaked out when they saw the Numbers but then everything sort of Settled down I mean it it should we be Concerned about a potential recession Listen Bank of America came out and Actually said we're not actually worried About a recession anymore I don't know If we should really be too concerned About a recession happening tomorrow the Market is also not the economy so even If you see the market all the way in the Red that does not mean we're headed to a Recession I think what this really means That this is a good time for you to Reduce your debt load we have seen Credit card debt continuing to be on the Rise probably in part because people Continue to spend this is a really good Time for you to reduce your debt loads a Lot of people are still sitting on cash
This is about a time that investors are Probably going to start thinking hey Maybe I could start putting some of my Money to work in the markets and once we Get those rate Cuts in just a couple of Weeks we're going to see the markets Head upwards I like the way you're Talking Christ I usually come here with Bad news and I feel like I have nothing But positive news to give you this Morning we are all in favor of rate Cuts Thank you so much of course
