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Axios
4 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Survey: Chicago back-to-school spending tops $740 per child
Shopping for school supplies will cost you more in Chicago, according to a new report. Why it matters: Back-to-school is the second-biggest retail event of the year, after the holidays. The latest: The annual Deloitte Back-to-School Survey estimates that Chicago parents will spend up to 30% more than the national average on school supplies. What they're saying:"Chicago parents are expected to spend $740 per child this back-to-school season," Deloitte Consulting's Matt Adams tells Axios. The national average is $570. "Chicago families are also spending more than the national average on packed lunches, extracurriculars and first-day outfits." Reality check: Chicago has outpaced national estimates before. In 2024, the report said Chicago parents would spend $747 per child, while the national average was $586. The intrigue: The biggest category for spending is clothing. 70% of local Chicago parents surveyed say their children's preferences generally influence them to spend more, including splurging on a first-day-of-school outfit. Zoom in: In addition to spending on back-to-school, 97% of Chicago parents surveyed plan to enroll their children in extracurricular activities, versus 90% nationally. Parents expect to spend $629 on fees and equipment, which is also above the national average ($532). Zoom out: 56% of the Chicago parents surveyed are concerned about higher prices and 71% of households report being in a similar or worse financial situation than last year. 51% expect the economy to weaken in the next six months (versus 37% in 2024). State of play: Prices for stationery and other supplies have risen 30% nationally over the past five years. New U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports — including backpacks, pens, binders and shoes — kicked in earlier this year, rose sharply, then came back down to levels still historically high. Yes, but: The full impact of tariffs hasn't hit store shelves yet — and back-to-school season may be the first test of how much price pressure shoppers will tolerate, according to a Wells Fargo Investment Institute report released last month.
CNBC
07-07-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Wells Fargo's Sameer Samana: Risk factors could still weigh on earnings
Sameer Samana, Wells Fargo Investment Institute senior global market strategist, joins CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss market outlooks, how much demand could deteriorate due to tariffs, and more.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Markets edge higher Monday after Iran fires missiles at U.S. base in Qatar
U.S. stocks rose and oil prices fell Monday, showing investor calm in the face of Iran's attack on a U.S. military base in Qatar. Markets are holding steady due to strong fundamentals and historical resilience despite the threat of yet another military installation. Stocks rose Monday and oil prices dropped even after Iran launched a missile attack on a U.S. military base in Qatar, in what experts are saying is a restrained response to prior U.S. strikes. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 0.89% higher Monday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.96% and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.94%. The U.S. joined Israel's war against Iran over the weekend, carrying out strikes against three Iranian nuclear sites. That's adding even more uncertainty to markets, which have been dealt tough hand after tough hand this year, including the Trump administration's erratic tariff policies, an ever-growing national debt, uncertain budget bill, and now conflict with Iran. Iran responded by launching missiles at the U.S.'s Al-Udeid military base in Qatar on Monday, an attack that yielded no U.S. casualties, according to reports. Markets barely reacted and oil prices fell, indicating they could be waiting for a more forceful response before making any major movements, says Sameer Samana, head of global equities and real assets at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. 'Historical precedent of markets selling off initially, only to recover and make new highs, has led investors to be a bit more level-headed about their reaction,' says Samana about the little movement seen since the U.S. strikes. 'Markets want to see how Iran responds prior to making a determination on how it might impact the macroeconomic story.' Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump posted on his social network that the nuclear sites hit by the U.S. over the weekend 'were totally destroyed.' 'Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible,' the president of the United States posted. 'It never ends with the sleazebags in the Media, and that's why their Ratings are at an ALL TIME LOW — ZERO CREDIBILITY!' Iran could still cut off access to the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for oil and gas that the country controls. Though Iranian lawmakers have approved its closure, it remained open Monday afternoon. 'We would argue that while there is some risk of markets selling off on a variety of events, the fundamentals remain strong enough for markets to continue their run higher into next year,' says Samana. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
AU Financial Review
18-06-2025
- Business
- AU Financial Review
ASX to open lower; Fed holds as Wall St rises
The ASX is set to open down but US stocks gained as the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady as expected. Fed officials see inflation worsening but still expect to make two interest rate cuts by the end of the year. They underscored that they are holding off from any changes to the key rate because of the uncertainty surrounding the impact of the tariffs and economic outlook. 'We're close to the all-time highs with a tremendous amount of event risk over the summer,' said Sameer Samana, head of global equities and real assets at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. 'For most investors, now would be a good time to rebalance and get ready for additional event-related volatility over the summer.' Market highlights ASX futures are pointing down 20 points or -0.2 per cent to 8513 All US prices are as of 1.30pm New York time. Thursday's agenda Australia's unemployment figures come out at 11.30am. New Zealand issues GDP data at 8.45am. Wall Street will be closed for the Juneteenth holiday. In the UK, the Bank of England is expected to keep rates on hold at 4.25%. Top stories 'We've got a mandate': Chalmers doubles down on $3m super tax | The treasurer said tax reform discussions were about the government looking for new ideas, not reversing course on its controversial super tax. Tax reform 'crucial' to budget sustainability: Chalmers | In a National Press Club address the treasurer has flagged tax changes and said Labor's election commitments were the 'foundation not a destination'. | The alert on April 8 – days after tariff fears sent Wall Street plunging – shows the pressure on super funds as they manage an unpredictable White House. The corporate regulator announced an inquiry into the sharemarket operator after a series of missteps including a disastrous settlement outage in December.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why investors should avoid 'over-risking' in equities right now
Wells Fargo's (WFC) Investment Institute released its 2025 mid-year outlook last week, offering insights for investors. Veronica Willis, Wells Fargo Investment Institute global investment strategist, joins Morning Brief to explain the report's findings, why investors should stay positioned in small-cap and mid-cap equities, and where she's seeing opportunity. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here. It is time now for today's strategy session. Wells Fargo's Investment Institute, releasing its 2025 mid-year outlook with insight and guidance for investors, joining me now, we've got Veronica Willis. Wells Fargo Investment Institute, Global Investment Strategist, Veronica, great to see you, thanks so much for hopping on after the opening bell, walk us through some of the key takeaways from that report. Yeah, absolutely. One major key takeaway in our outlook is that through 2026 we're expecting stock market um to move higher. There's going to be some volatility this year. There are a lot of economic, geopolitical and policy uncertainties that are going to contribute to some market volatility this year. We think through 2026 as the economy growth reaccelerates, we are going to see those higher stock prices and so we're really focused on keeping investors invested in the market at this point. And so with that in mind, one of the notes that I was looking at is your views and how you're evaluating this entire outlook, uh across periods of volatility that are being expected here. You mentioned within this outlook, viewing further periods of volatility as an opportunity to lean into equities, to position for the gains that you expect through 2026. What does that mean in terms of an asset class that you would be looking to and and kind of over indexing towards? That's right. So we want to be selective in that equity space and we're focusing on quality. So we like the large cap and the mid cap space over small caps, and we like developed markets over emerging markets. So thinking about moving a little bit up in quality, not over risking within the equity space. So on those down days when the market pulls back, that's where we want to add exposure, the US um large cap space and the mid cap space. And then if you're underweight any in an international space, adding to developed over adding to emerging markets. You know, we had one of our guests earlier um from Ritholtz Wealth uh Kelly Cox who had said that a lot of executives may not need to actually come out swinging and say, hey, everything is now fine, when in fact, everything is not very much fine. Tariff trouble, as you know, within your own outlook as well, that's still going to persist. And so with that persistence, what is the likelihood that in this next earnings season to begin in a couple weeks, that we actually have even more or any type of clarity from and a C-suite across corporate America that is trying to best figure out, okay, how long could this linger and be a headwind to our own results? Yeah, I think we're likely to see another earnings quarter where, you know, companies are reiterating caution or a lot of uncertainty still related to tariffs. I think with the rebounds from the April lows with the market, we might have been lulled into a false sense of security around the tariffs, but the fact remains that a lot of things are still unsettled. We've got that, you know, mid-July deadline for, you know, reimplementation of some tariffs. Potentially we might see some trade deals between now and then, but uh the fact remains that that's still an uncertainty. And so we could at the start of this, you know, Q2 earnings season, start to see some companies still a little bit uncertain, not quite knowing what to do with forward guidance. And so as I'm looking through some of the top five things that you're looking for in top five portfolio ideas for the balance of 2025, one of the things that jumped out to me was how you're looking across some of not just the policy uncertainty, but then also trying to figure out where within this diversification strategy, investors could potentially see some outperformance. And we had actually a viewer that commented to one of our conversations last week on Twitter saying, where have there been surprising elements of resilience even in the diversification strategy right now? Where have you been seeing that? Yeah, I think what we've been seeing is a bit of strength in the international space. So so far this year, developed markets, XUS, equities have really picked up the slack where other um equity markets have, you know, disappointed. We haven't fully recovered from that pullback in the US markets and so had you had that developed market exposure as a part of a globally diversified allocation, would have helped a lot during that pullback that we saw earlier this year. We are continuing to expect some volatility that's going to be pretty much US-centric, and so continuing to have that developed market exposure is a good idea for this year. And what do you expect of the long tail of the generative AI trade to look like in all of that? Yeah, we think with AI, it's been thought of as only a tech story, but we think that there are some other sectors that are really going to benefit from the um AI space. So communication services in particular, industrials and energy, we think are all other sectors that are going to benefit really well. Those companies are going to be able to, you know, utilize AI or they're, you know, a part of the supply chain for providing the energy necessary for generative AI. And so we think, you know, don't just focus on the tech sector, which we are still favorable on, but broadening that out into some of these other sectors is going to be a really good way to play the AI trade. Veronica, always great to grab some time and insights from you. Thank you. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
