Another pulse check on the US consumer/Sentiment/China/Other

Here's more commentary on the US consumer from Walmart and Ross Stores:

WMT

"As a global retailer, we see how our customers and members are affected by what's happening at a macro level and how that influences their behaviors. Jobs, wages, and pockets of disinflation are helping our customers, but rising energy prices, resuming student loan payments, higher borrowing costs, and tightening lending standards, and a drawdown in excess savings mean that household budgets are still under pressure."

The CEO went further, "I was in Calgary visiting stores a couple of weeks ago, and our Canadian customers are feeling the pinch of higher interest rates faster than in the US, given their shorter term mortgages. When you put this all together, we see families that are discerning about what they're spending on. They're setting priorities and spending on the things they care most about...We see them buying more private brand items, and they're buying more grocery staples and in-home meal options consistent with eating at home." 

As for their customer demographic, "We see people across income cohorts come to us more frequently looking to save money on everyday needs."

In terms of mix, "We're encouraged by how general merchandise performed during the 2nd quarter vs our expectations. We still expect food, consumables, and health and wellness, primarily due to the popularity of some GLP-1 drugs, to grow as a percent of total in the back half, but the trends we see in general merchandise sales make us feel more optimistic about those categories in the back half of the year." 

The CFO gave some more color on that general merchandise improvement, "kitchen tools like hand blenders and stand mixers have inflected higher as customers are preparing more food at home. They're also buying more necessities and focusing on lower priced items and brands." 

Finally on inventories, "we ended the quarter down 5%, including an 8% decline in Walmart US. We feel good about the progress we've made on in-stock levels as supply chain has normalized and the composition of our inventory mix is improved."

ROST, whose customers are mostly low to moderate income,