On Wednesday, bitcoin’s value ascended past the $60K threshold, peaking at a 24-hour high of $61,389 by 10:45 a.m. (ET). Concurrently, South Korea observed a pronounced premium over the international exchange rate, with local platforms such as Upbit and Bithumb displaying prices that are $2,251 higher. In a Worldwide Bitcoin Frenzy, South Korea and 30+ […]
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“‘I signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other musical artists. Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will. There’s no way she could endorse crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt president in the history of our country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.’”
That’s former President Donald Trump, who, hours before Super Bowl LVIII, was focused on the romantic partner of one of the star players.
Trump took to Truth Social, his preferred social-media platform, on Sunday afternoon, writing, “There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden,” instead of “be[ing] loyal” to Trump, who, in his own stated view, was “the man who made her so much money.”
For what it’s worth, Swift had made quite a bit of money before Trump entered the White House. In 2016, the year before Trump’s inauguration, she was named one of Forbes’ highest-paid celebrities. The outlet said that she raked in $170 million in that year alone. She’s now worth multiples of that number.
Don’t miss (from December 2023): Taylor Swift is Time’s person of the year. Here’s why she’s also been a big financial story in 2023.
The Music Modernization Act, a bipartisan effort, passed both houses unanimously in 2017 before being signed into law by Trump.
Swift has also been at the center of conspiracy theories stirred up by various conservative commentators, including former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. In short, the theory goes that various entities had been colluding with the National Football League to ensure the Kansas City Chiefs — the team for which Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, plays tight end — would win, setting up a platform for Swift to endorse President Joe Biden for re-election, perhaps on the field in Las Vegas.
That theory was swatted down by two Republicans on Sunday.
“Taylor Swift is one of the great American success stories,” former candidate Chris Christie said on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “We should be celebrating her, not having all these crazy conspiracy theories. But this is the kind of thing that Donald Trump brings about.”
Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, said he hoped “we can get rid of these conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift” in his explanation of why he was rooting for a San Francisco 49ers victory.
Kansas City won the Super Bowl in overtime.
From the archives (from October 2018): Flanked by musicians, Trump signs music copyright bill into law
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. CEO Adam Aron has expressed the movie-theater chain’s “eternal gratitude” to Taylor Swift as the singer-songwriter’s concert film breaks another record.
Variety reported Sunday that “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” has earned more than $261.6 million globally, making it the highest-grossing concert and documentary film in history, surpassing “Michael Jackson’s This Is It.”
“Now at $261.6 million globally, AMC’s first ever released film, TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR just became the highest grossing concert film & highest grossing documentary film of all time,” Aron tweeted Sunday. “AMC sends our congratulations and eternal gratitude to Taylor Swift for being so remarkable.”
Related: AMC still riding a ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ wave
AMC shares
AMC,
which recently hit record lows, have edged lower this week. The movie-theater chain and original meme-stock darling’s stock is down 85% in the past 52 weeks, compared with the S&P 500’s
SPX
gain of 20.9%.
In addition to showing “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” in its theaters, AMC is also the theatrical distributor for the movie. AMC Theatres Distribution, along with subdistribution partners Variance Films, Trafalgar Releasing, Cinepolis and Cineplex Inc.
CPXGF,
CGX,
clinched deals with movie-theater operators representing more than 8,500 venues globally to show the film, according to AMC.
“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” was breaking records even before its scheduled release on Oct. 13, prompting more showings to be added. On Oct. 11, Swift tweeted that early access showings would be held on Oct. 12, citing “unprecedented demand” for the movie.
Related: AMC shares rise as ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ sets another record
The movie shattered the record for the biggest global opening weekend for a concert film, racking up $128 million in box-office returns, according to Comscore. Imax Corp.
IMAX,
announced that “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” had a $13 million global box-office debut, making it the largest Imax opening of a concert or a documentary film by a musical artist.
Investors and traders flocked back into the safety of U.S. government debt on Tuesday, causing long-term yields to drop in a manner that suggests rising worries about the risk of a faster-than-expected economic slowdown.
The benchmark 10-year yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
ended down by 11.5 basis points at 4.171%, while the 30-year rate
BX:TMUBMUSD30Y
dropped by a slightly bigger magnitude to 4.306%. Those are the lowest levels for both rates since Aug. 31-Sept. 1, according to 3 p.m. Eastern time figures from Dow Jones Market Data.
Multiple factors appeared to be at play during Tuesday’s session aside from just U.S. growth prospects. One was expectations for a rate cut next year by the European Central Bank. Another is the decision by investors and traders to remove some term premium — or compensation that had been demanded for the risks of holding longer-term debt to maturity and was put into place earlier this year.
The third factor the market is weighing, even if it may not be fully reflected in Tuesday’s moves, is the possibility of an unexpectedly faster U.S. economic slowdown that could morph into a growth scare and undermine expectations for a soft landing, analysts said. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate is for a 1.2% real GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter, down from 1.8% last Thursday.
LPL Chief Global Strategist Quincy Krosby said the 10-year yield needs to be watched closely because a faster downward pace of decline would suggest “a growth scare has taken hold.”
The benchmark 10-year rate finished 40.4 basis points below its 2-year counterpart
BX:TMUBMUSD02Y,
keeping the spread between the two yields negative. Ordinarily, the spread should be positive when investors and traders see brighter U.S. prospects ahead. It goes negative when pessimism generally prevails, and the spread has remained inverted since mid-2022.
Tuesday’s move in the curve “doesn’t quite yet suggest a growth scare, which would be accompanied by a more severe flattening of the 2s10s spread,” said Tom Nakamura, a currency strategist and co-head of fixed income at AGF Investments in Toronto, which managed $29.7 billion (CAD $40.3 billion) as of Oct. 31.
“At the end of October, the spread was inverted by around 16 basis points and is now inverted by around 40 basis points, versus more than 100 basis points back in the summer when more Fed hikes were expected to be delivered. We are at the stage where the market is still hoping for a best-of-all-worlds scenario of a soft landing, with growth coming down in a still-healthy manner. The next phase is, ‘do we get more evidence of a soft landing or does this snowball into something more severe like a hard landing?’”
Long-term yields finished at three-month lows on Tuesday as investors weighed a mix of U.S. data that included an update on job openings, which fell to a 28-month low of 8.7 million for October, and an ISM reading on the services sector, which picked up in November. Meanwhile, U.S. stocks
DJIA
SPX
COMP
finished mostly lower.
Tom Graff, chief investment officer at Baltimore-based Facet, which oversees around $2 billion, said Tuesday’s moves reflected some combination of headwinds facing Europe, prompting the need for a 2024 rate cut by the ECB, and term premium that was starting to come out of the U.S. bond market.
In addition, concern in markets “is shifting from solely worrying about inflation to now worrying about whether slowing economic data could continue,” Graff said, citing recent jobs- and manufacturing-linked reports. “I would be pretty concerned if Friday’s jobs data comes in weaker than October’s. A soft landing is the consensus now, but now we need to see if we go from a soft landing to a hard landing.”
Taylor Swift has entered her billionaire era.
The pop star, who has dominated the cultural landscape this year with her concert tour, album re-releases, blockbuster film and relationship with Super Bowl winner Travis Kelce, has seen her wealth cross the 10-figure mark, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The 33-year-old’s net worth is now roughly $1.1 billion, the Bloomberg News analysis found. To calculate the figure, which the publication called “conservative,” it estimated the value of her five homes, earnings from music sales, streaming deals, concert tickets and merchandise, as well as the value of her music catalog.
The music Swift has released since 2019 is valued at $400 million, Bloomberg reports, while her income from sales of tickets and merchandise to her massive concert tour is $370 million. The report also notes that a more bullish analysis of the value of her music would put it at $1 billion.
Her earnings from streams of her music, real estate portfolio and royalties from music sales are estimated at $310 million.
Earlier this summer, Swift’s Eras Tour was already poised to become the highest-grossing tour of all time, earning a record-setting $1 billion in sales. The stadium spectacular, which has seen tickets sell for tens of thousands of dollars, will continue until November 2024.
A recently released concert film of the Eras Tour quickly became the highest-grossing domestic concert film ever, raking in just short of $100 million during its opening weekend. The figure was enough to give Swift the second-best October box office opening ever.
And it looks like Swift’s wealth is only going to keep growing from here.
Bloomberg’s report arrived just hours before the release of “1989 (Taylor’s Version)”, a re-recording of her massively popular 2014 album which sold 1 million copies in its first week.
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Taylor Swift performs onstage for the opening night of “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at State Farm Stadium.
Kevin Mazur | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Box office analysts became Swifties in the lead-up to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film release, estimating blockbuster-style opening weekend numbers.
And Swift delivered.
While the pop singer fell short of the $100 million benchmark, domestic ticket sales still topped $95 million, according to distributor AMC Entertainment.
The theater chain provided a range of $95 million to $97 million for the film’s opening weekend on Sunday, with expectations that an official figure will be provided on Monday once all tickets have been tallied.
“The film’s debut is an undeniable tentpole-level success despite the challenges of predicting what it might achieve,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “Swift, her fans, and theatrical exhibition should all be celebrating the results.”
Already, the film has shattered records, becoming the highest-grossing concert film release domestically, surpassing Justin Beiber’s “Never Say Never” film release, which hauled in $73 million over the course of its run in theaters in 2011, in a single weekend. And it easily beat Miley Cyrus’ “Best of Both Worlds” record opening of $31.1 million from 2008.
Swift’s Eras Tour film is also the widest-released concert film in history, arriving in more than 3,850 domestic locations during its debut.
Monday’s official tally will unveil if Swift was able to capture the highest opening of October, currently held by 2019’s “The Joker” ($96.2 million), and if it is the sixth or seventh-highest opening of 2023. Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” secured $95.6 million when it opened in May.
There’s also a possibility that word of mouth and fan’s love of Swift could send more moviegoers to theaters on Sunday, pushing it closer to that $100 million figure.
“As cautioned in recent weeks, forecasts were always going to be incredibly volatile given the highly unique nature of this release,” Robbins said. “Variables such as average ticket price, assessing how frontloaded Swift’s fan base would make the film’s presales, and whether or not any traditional marketing would bring out non-Swifties all weighed heavily on the wide range of possible outcomes.”
Initially, expectations said Swift could tally between $40 million and $60 million on Friday, on her way to an opening weekend draw of as much as $150 million. The film scored $39 million on Friday, just shy of the forecasted range and included $2.8 million from last-minute Thursday night previews, which were announced less than 24 hours before they were available for purchase.
“Swift’s excitement-inducing reputation and the unprecedented nature of the release led to a massive outpouring of interest in the film certainly contributed to some overblown expectations of a $100 million plus weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “But that should not detract from the enormity of this box office achievement.”
U.S. singer-songwriter Taylor Swift performs during her The Eras Tour concert at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on Aug. 7, 2023.
Michael Tran | Afp | Getty Images
A whopping 60% of tickets for the weekend were bought in advance, according to data from EntTelligence, one of the highest rates the movie data firm has ever seen. Typically, big tentpoles see 40% of tickets sold ahead of time.
Around 4.8 million people were estimated to have attended the film over the weekend, with an average ticket price of $20.75, EntTelligence reported. Nearly 80% of the audience was female.
International box office figures were not immediately available on Sunday, but with a solid domestic opening, expectations are high that the film can surpass the $262.5 million global haul of “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” during its limited run in theaters.
Swift’s film has weekend-only engagements in theaters, instead of daily screenings, so comparisons to other releases will be difficult in the coming weeks, but weekend-to-weekend figures will be comparable.
“The question now is what the Swift film will do for an encore in the coming days and weeks,” Dergarabedian said. “Reports of a spectacular in-theater experience bodes well for the long-term playability of the film and guarantees the film will easily eclipse the $100 million mark in the domestic market.”
2023 has been a big year for live music, driven by the phenomenal success of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour and, last week, U2’s eagerly-anticipated opening of new Las Vegas venue Sphere.
This year also marked the culmination of Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. Fellow music icon Bruce Springsteen has also been on the road, although The Boss had to postpone his remaining 2023 tour dates until 2024 as he recovers from peptic ulcer disease.
David Schulhof, founder and chief executive of the MUSQ Global Music Industry ETF
MUSQ,
told MarketWatch that he’s not at all surprised by the level of attention that these tours have garnered. “People really want live music,” he said. “There’s nothing that can replicate the live-music experience.”
Related: Sphere Entertainment’s stock climbs after Sphere venue opens with stunning U2 concert
The MUSQ ETF, which was launched in July, has about 50 holdings, spanning streaming, content and distribution, live music, satellite and broadcast, and equipment and technology. One of the fund’s top holdings is Sphere Entertainment Co.
SPHR,
owner of Sphere, the new 360-foot-tall immersive concert and entertainment venue in Las Vegas. Irish rock giants U2 kicked off a 25-show residency at Sphere on Friday with a stunning concert.
“It’s just really exciting for live music — anybody that really enjoys live music is really going to enjoy this venue,” Schulhof told MarketWatch. Buoyed by Friday’s opening, Sphere shares ended Monday’s session up 11.11%, their biggest single-day percentage gain since Feb. 9, when they gained 11.68%.
Other holdings in the ETF include media technology company Avid Technology Inc.
AVID,
Dolby Laboratories Inc.
DLB,
Sonos Inc.
SONO,
Live Nation Entertainment Inc.
LYV,
Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp.
MSGE,
Sirius XM Holdings Inc.
SIRI,
and European ticketing giant CTS Eventim AG & Co
EVD,
The fund currently has $11.7 million in assets under management.
Related: A $35,000 trip to see Taylor Swift? How the artist’s fans boosted the Los Angeles economy by $320 million.
Schulhof, who is the former president of music publishing at digital media company LiveOne Inc.
LVO,
sees AI and blockchain as the next big things in the music industry. “AI is revolutionizing creativity and productivity for artists today,” he said. “All kinds of tools are available now to create new music for their fans.”
Earlier this year, news that the Beatles are using AI to include John Lennon’s voice on a new song divided fans of the iconic Liverpool band, and left musicians weighing the impact of the technology.
Schulhof noted that AI could be applied to the music “stems,” or individual audio tracks, that are used to create complete songs. “By accessing these stems, they can create new works,” he said.
As Beatles ‘go AI,’ musicians weigh impact: ‘Lennon wouldn’t be best pleased’
The MUSQ CEO acknowledged the challenges that AI can pose to the music industry, as evidenced by the controversy caused by an AI-generated song that used cloned voices of Drake and The Weeknd. The two biggest threats posed to the music industry by AI are piracy and market dilution, he added.
“I think that the benefits [of AI] are far more exciting than any of the risks.” Schulhof said.
With regard to blockchain, Schulhof sees opportunities for artists to strengthen relationships with their fans through the likes of NFTs. Blockchain technology can also be used to speed up payments to artists, according to Schulhof, who notes that, at the moment, it’s not unusual for an artist to wait nine months for payment after a song has appeared on the radio. “[Blockchain] takes out the middleman,” he said.
Opinion: The Beatles are using AI to include John Lennon’s voice on a new song: Why I don’t want to hear it
Blockchain, which has grown in popularity in recent years, is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions. The technology is used to underpin cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
“AI and blockchain is really transforming the music industry,” Schulhof said.
It’s no news that Taylor Swift sells a lot of concert tickets. But is her fanbase now also feverishly buying seats to football games?
That appears to be the case. Swift is rumored to be in a relationship with Kansas City Chiefs All-Pro tight end Jason Kelce and attended last weekend’s Chiefs game versus the Chicago Bears in Kansas City, Mo.
As a result, tickets to future Chiefs games are said to be a hot item, with Swifties (as her fans are called) apparently hoping to get a glimpse of the pop star at upcoming contests.
The Kansas City Star reported Tuesday that StubHub, the ticket-resale platform, “has seen a nearly three-fold increase in ticket sales and ticket searches for all Chiefs home games for the rest of the season.”
And the same may be true for Chiefs away games, or at least it appears to be the case for the team’s match against the New York Jets this upcoming Sunday at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the Jets home venue. Town & Country reported that sales were strong on StubHub for that match as well.
Not that any future Swift football sightings are guaranteed in the New York metro area or elsewhere. But as Town & Country noted, “Swift is based in New York City, leading many to speculate that if she wants to watch another football game, MetLife Stadium would be an easy location for her to attend.”
MarketWatch reached out to StubHub for details, but didn’t receive an immediate response.
Swift is on break from her hugely successful “Eras” tour until November. But Swifties have at least one other option for seeing her beyond buying football tickets with the possible chance of getting a glimpse.
That is, the movie version of Swift’s tour, simply titled “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” is set to be released on Oct. 13. Swift announced Tuesday that the picture, originally scheduled for U.S. release that day, will now be available worldwide.
A scene from “Barbie.”
Courtesy: Warner Bros.
Hollywood bet big on blockbuster franchise sequels to revive its summer cinema business, but it was fresh fare such as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” that fueled the industry’s haul of $4 billion, a 19% jump from last year.
Starting the first Friday in May and running through Labor Day weekend, the summer movie season, on average, represents 40% of all movie ticket sales for the year. Studios typically pad this part of the release calendar with superhero spectacles, franchise sequels and action-packed flicks in an effort to capture audience attention during the hottest months of the year.
Fall is looking gloomy, however.
Movie theaters are already contending with less content than previous years. Missing titles such as “Dune: Part Two” will exacerbate that issue. The industry got some good news in the form of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film, arriving in theaters in October. Expectations are set high for its debut, with many box office analysts expecting a $100 million opening. Swift won’t be able to balance the scales by herself, however.
Still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, Hollywood has entered a chaotic period of recovery. As studios are desperately trying to lure moviegoers away from their couches, they are also contending with dual labor strikes that have limited their ability to market their slate.
Top summer movies of 2023, domestic
Source: Comscore
Following pandemic-related shutdowns, Hollywood has fewer titles to offer up to theaters. This summer, there were 10 fewer wide-released films than in 2019, a nearly 24% decline. Still, the 2023 summer box office managed to trail pre-pandemic levels by just 5.9%, or a little more than $200 million, according to data from Comscore.
“Perhaps the most notable aspect of the summer movie season of ’23 was its volatility,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Costly franchise installments, which were supposed to tap into audience nostalgia, fell flat.
Instead, cinema patrons opted for original storytelling, leaning toward the bubblegum pink “Barbie” and dark and intense “Oppenheimer.”
“Barbie,” a partnership between Warner Bros. and Mattel, generated $612.3 million between its July 21 release and Labor Day, representing 15% of the total summer box office.
In addition to titles from major studios, the summer haul was fueled by ticket sales for “Sound of Freedom” from Angel Studios, which became a surprise hit with audiences. It has generated nearly $200 million since its July 4 release.
Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson star in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of “Dune.”
Warner Bros.
The summer season also showed a growing desire from audiences for tickets to premium format showings, said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. He said the industry can learn a lot from the performances of titles such as “Barbie,” particularly the appeal of grassroots communal experiences in cinemas.
“The caveat, however, is that the release calendar has thinned out slightly due to the ongoing strikes,” he said. “While this could create an opportunity for certain studios and films, it’s a headwind that nonetheless presents an increasing number of challenges for theater owners and audiences who don’t want to see more delays of movies they’re looking forward to.”
Over the longer term, it would become an increasing worry for next year as productions remain halted, Robbins added.
It comes as the theater industry is reigniting, with the overall box office from January through Labor Day up about 25% from last year.
However, it still lags from 2019 levels by 13%, and the fall movie season looks to be a tepid one, even with Swift’s concert movie on the calendar.
Already, films such as Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment’s “Dune: Part Two” and Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter” and the “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” sequel have all departed for 2024 as writers and actors strike against studios.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of Universal Studios and CNBC.
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Barbie, Oppenheimer
Getty Images
Consumer spending may not be out of the woods.
Real spending is expected to come in 1.9% higher in the third quarter, helped in part by stadium tours from music superstars Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, as well as summer movie blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” according to Morgan Stanley. But the economic halo may be short lived, the firm warned on Wednesday.
Taken together, Morgan Stanley economist Sarah Wolfe said the “unprecedented” revenues tied to these events should add a seventh of one percentage point to consumption growth in the quarter. They fall under the movie consumption and non-sports live entertainment portions of the personal-consumption expenditures price index, known as the PCE.
Those sectors make up around 0.2% and 0.05% of the total index, respectively. That means fans showed up and spent enough in these typically miniscule business areas to substantially boost the health of the broader U.S. economy.
“These categories alone would have to see massive swings in order to impact overall economic activity,” Wolfe said in a note to clients. “And they have.”
But the end of those music tours in the U.S. and declining theater viewership for these films the rest of the year could lead to a 0.6-percentage-point “hangover effect” to consumer spending in the fourth quarter. Simultaneously, Wolfe said the return of student loan payments this fall should pull consumption down another by another eighth of a percentage point.
“The factors boosting 3Q consumption are extraordinary,” Wolfe said. “In 4Q, these factors not only unwind, but the October expiration of the student loan moratorium further weighs on consumption.”
Taylor Swift’s “Eras” and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tours have filled stadiums around the country and created online buzz.
Swift’s tour, in particular, has garnered attention for its expensive resale market and ticket purchasing fiasco that brought scrutiny to Ticketmaster from fans and lawmakers alike. Beyoncé made national headlines for paying to keep the metro system of Washington, D.C., running later after her show was delayed by inclement weather.
Both tours have been credited for boosting the economies of the cities they visit as fans crisscross the country for their chance to see the singers. The concerts and movies combined have also inspired attendees to dress the part, encouraging further spending on new outfits and accessories like friendship bracelets and custom black fedoras.
The impact has garnered the attention of everyone ranging from local business owners to the Federal Reserve. Last month, the Philadelphia Fed reported hotel bookings when Swift came to town showed their strongest growth since the pandemic began.
“Despite the slowing recovery in tourism in the region overall, one contact highlighted that May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city,” the central bank officials said in the Beige Book, a summary of economic activity released eight times a year.
Swift announced on Thursday that a filmed version of her tour will debut in theatres on Oct. 13, originally the same day as the new “Exorcist” film from Blumhouse Productions and Universal. The pair became known online as #Exorswift before the release date for the latest “Exorcist” installment was moved up. While the tour film can provide a bump to movie ticket sales, the fourth quarter is already expected to see strong sales given its proximity to the Oscars.
It’s the second time this year that two unrelated movies released on the same day have become intertwined. Warner Bros. “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” became known as “Barbenheimer,” and the pair supercharged box office numbers last month even as two Hollywood union strikes have essentially halted movie production.
“Barbie” has become the highest-grossing release in the U.S. this year, while “Oppenheimer” is now director Christopher Nolan’s third best performing movie ever, domestically. With help from other films, the opening weekend was the fourth biggest ever for the U.S. box office.
Retailers have jumped on the Barbie craze in particular, hawking themed goods from heeled shoes to pool floaties.
Wolfe noted that the drag on consumer spending from the end of the student loan moratorium has been somewhat mitigated by the Biden administration’s 12-month grace period. Under this plan, borrowers who fail to make payments for the first year will be spared from some of the harshest consequences.
With the tours and the movies winding down, Wolfe’s team anticipates the real PCE will contract by 0.6% between the third and fourth quarter. Real gross domestic product should eke out a 0.1% gain in the fourth quarter.
That shift could catch the attention of the Fed, according to Wolfe. She thinks the central bank, which is still waging war on inflation, should take the cultural slowdown as another reason to be patient when deciding on the future path of interest rates.
Disclosure: Comcast owns Universal and NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.