Consumer Stocks Flash an Economic Warning Sign

Since I penned my September 20th BI article entitled, The Action in Home Depot and Starbucks Suggest Now is Not the Time (for the Fed) to Raise Rates, Home Depot (HD) is up 0.9%, while Starbucks (SBUX) is up 1.5%. The cash SPX is up 0.7%, indicating that in the aftermath of the Fed’s reluctance to make good on its intensifying threat to hike rates on September 21st, the consumer stocks are acting relatively strong, albeit in a constrained sort of way, given the sideways to lower price action in HD and SBUX for the entirety of 2016.