Q1 GDP growth in the US was simply abysmal – its worst in 3 years – but that does not matter as hope springs eternal that Spring is sprung and it’s all green shoots from here. However… that’s not what we are seeing in personal spending data (biggest miss in over 4 years in April) and now Bloomberg’s Orange Book which implicitly tracks CEO Confidence via their comments has dropped back to the year’s lows – not what we are being told by the talking-heads who promulgate the hockey-stick faith in our central planners.
Perhaps Campbell’s Soup CEO summed it up best:
Campbell Soup [CPB] Earnings Call 5/19/14: “I’m disappointed that we failed to deliver the sales growth that we anticipated in the third quarter.
We believe this is in part a reflection of the persistence of an exceptionally challenging consumer environment.
As many others in the industry have noted, consumers are suffering from continuing underemployment, reductions in the SNAP program and rising home, fuel and healthcare costs. In combination, these factors are significantly affecting purchasing behavior, pressuring the performance of a number of our key customers and constraining growth across the industry, particularly in center store categories.”
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1kpQflc Tyler Durden