Justin Ho

The economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research keep a close watch on personal income excluding transfers because it can be one indicator of when a recession is starting.

I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace.

A single company's earnings call isn't going to tell you what's going on with consumers.

But listen to a lot of them and you can learn something about how Americans are shopping.

Ravi Dhar directs the Yale Center for Customer Insights.

He says people are looking at their choices and making tradeoffs.

Shake Shack has cut its earnings forecast for the year.

McDonald's has surpassed expectations.

That's a trend across the economy.

Consumers are focused on finding value.

But it doesn't necessarily mean they're spending less, says Chris Carril, lead restaurants analyst at KeyBank Capital Markets.

Consumers are making similar shifts when it comes to retail.

David Swartz, a consumer equity analyst at Morningstar, says people are abandoning super luxury brands for coach bags.

Instead of the department store, they're going to TJ Maxx.

And they're trying to not give in to temptation.

People will tend to visit stores probably less often and probably buy more when they're there.

Again, a change in spending habits, but not necessarily a change in spending.

Swartz says Americans are on edge between high gas prices, low consumer sentiment, a war.

But the bottom line is that consumer spending is better than what you might expect and better than what a lot of these companies expected.

So why are consumers acting cautious but still spending?