Kim Kahn

Good afternoon.

Today is Tuesday, February 10th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn.

Our top story so far.

Retail sales were flat in December, missing expectations for a 0.4% increase and slowing from 0.6% growth in November.

Sales were up 2.4% from a year ago.

Core retail sales, excluding motor vehicles and parts, were also flat versus forecasts for a 0.4% gain.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said...

This is a K-shaped economy, with strong spending from the top and much more cautious spending from the middle and lower income consumers.

She added the holiday season was solid but not spectacular, with shoppers hunting for bargains and buying early to grab discounts.

Overall, the consumer is still spending, Long said, but this is the Costco economy for the middle class.

Among weak categories, furniture and home furnishings down 5.6% from a year ago.

Department stores were down 0.3% year over year.

Not great news for Macy's, Kohl's, and Dillard's.

and non-store retailers rose to 0.1% month-over-month, though they were still up 5.3% year-over-year, a slower pace for the category that includes Amazon, Etsy, Wayfair, and eBay.

Among active stocks, Coca-Cola is lower after missing Q4 revenue expectations.

The company sees full-year organic sales growth of about 4-5%, below the 5% consensus, with EPS growth of 7-8%.

Datadog is rallying after beating Q4 expectations and issuing bullish Q1 guidance.

The cloud security and monitoring platform sees first quarter 2026 revenue of about $956 million, above the 934 consensus.

And Spotify is also higher after guiding above expectations for subscriber metrics in the current quarter.

For Q1, total MAUs are seen rising about $9 million to $759 million, above the $752.45 billion consensus.