Lou Whiteman

Whereas an everyday consumer, this is a look into the immediate future and what it spells for a lot of these different costs.

And the important thing to note is when the costs of making a product explode this quickly, most businesses can't afford to just absorb the financial hit.

And so obviously to protect their margins, they are going to eventually pass that down quickly.

to the consumer.

And I do think if you're looking at this today, it is a bit of a preview of what we're going to be seeing in terms of price hikes on grocery shelves, retail websites, at the gas pump.

I think it also underscores the fact that as robust as the stock market's performance continues to be, there is and remains a fundamental disconnect between the realized economic reality for a lot of consumers.

And that's also important to us as investors for a lot of the companies that we own and follow.

Yeah, I mean, I think there are risks and opportunities across a range of markets.

One of the things that's kind of interesting to consider is the subscription models for services like Netflix and Spotify.

Right.

I mean, these are services that tend to be built on recurring monthly cycles.

So historically, there's kind of this level of baseline consistency.

But what we'll often see in these maybe difficult macro periods is.

is maybe instead of a user maintaining three or four active streaming subscriptions, they'll have a cyclical pattern.

Maybe they'll subscribe, say, to Netflix for a single season of a show, and then they'll cancel, especially during these periods of economic pressure.

So I think that's something that could be a risk to what I think are fundamentally great businesses like Netflix and Spotify.

You talked a bit about the retailers, right?

So Target's an interesting example.

They rely really heavily on home decor and apparel sales.

So there are...