Costco Racks Up Stimulus Spend; Research Shows High-Income Consumers Will Save

摘要： There were all kinds of questions in the public sphere as the second round of stimulus checks went out in early 2021. Would consumers actually spend them as intended, or would those stimulus dollars flow into savings accounts and toward paying off debt as so much of the first $1,200 round had? Was it not enough money? Was it too much money? Did the right people get it? Would the payout be smoother the second time through?

▲圖片標題(來源：pymnts.com)

What no one thought to ask ahead of time was whether the stimulus payments would end-up funding the first crowd-funded short-squeeze in the history of the stock exchange, wherein a bunch of Redditors managed to cause some moderate market chaos in the ending day of January. Such are unintended consequences — because as it turns out that’s exactly what did happen, according to TheStreet reports. It said stimulus payments (or stimmies as they are colloquially called) provided the key cash in hand for many of the participants in the run on GameStop’s stock price the dominated the news last week.

Of course, comparably few consumers invested their stimulus payments in GameStop stock/a personal war with institutional short sellers, which begs the question — where will those stimulus dollars actually end up?

The simple answer to that question might be Costco. The warehouse club retailer reported its January sales data on Wednesday and stimulus checks have boosted its January same-store sales. Worldwide, comparable sales were up 15.9 percent year-on-year last month and led by U.S. comparable stores growth of 16.4 percent and an eCommerce explosion of 105.4 percent. And though Costco noted that spend was largely in necessary goods — like household cleaners — it did start to see some recovery in discretionary spending, which also enjoyed double-digit growth, as consumers started spending stimulus dollars.

There is, however, a more complicated answer to “how will consumers spend their stimulus?” Because it seems to be a function of who that person specifically is.

Some consumers like Albert Lewis are increasingly looking into investment as an option for the $600 payment that has hit their accounts as a sudden windfall. Lewis is a college student on scholarship currently living at home with his parents. He told Bloomberg he’s hoping to park his money with a firm like Apple or Facebook or “some company that’s not going anywhere.”

轉貼自： pymnts.com

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