Dan Caplinger

instead of 6 a.m., it's just kind of nutty.

And so now it's almost like this adversarial relationship.

If you don't get the absolute best deal, then you find out about it later.

you're angry at that first retailer who you did business with.

And that's not the relationship that retailers are trying to have.

This is September data that we're looking at.

Retail sales up 4.2% year-over-year from September 2024.

That includes a bunch of stuff.

It does not include natural price increases, though.

You take a look at CPI up 3% over the same period.

You're really looking at just like a 1.2 percentage point increase in real terms, inflation adjusted returns on retail sales.

And when you look at the numbers, Travis, it's not quite as good as that because a lot of that extra spending is really more towards the essentials, the staples types of areas, things like food.

clothing essentials.

When you look at discretionary spending, not quite as healthy.

We saw some strength in autos, but I think some of that, again, September numbers, we saw a pull forward in September as EV credits expired.

I think that the picture here, maybe not quite as rosy as those headline numbers would make it sound.

Asit, it's interesting because I've taken that.

It's sort of shifted my investing philosophy a little bit.

It used to be that I kind of shied away from over-investing in high-tech stocks because I kind of felt like my job had a lot to do with the success of those high-tech stocks.

And now at this point, it's sort of like, well, if high tech has a potential to replace me, it's sort of like, where's that income going to come from, Travis?