Wal-Mart Just Signaled Something Big

追加: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]What's about to happen is going to push US consumers over the financial edge.

[00:00:06]That's what's being reported here. We're going to get into warnings today out of Walmart. Also, other warnings coming in in the credit card delinquency rate. The first the biggest jump we've seen in many years and the delinquency rates in credit cards in the US are at the highest level since 2010. So, it just got worse and it's going to be even worse going down the road. We're going to We're going to explain here what's going to happen, what I think is going to happen, and what's being reported and what's being reported out of the financial forecasters. And we're going to hear from a few different people on that. But first, let's take a look at what's happening over at Walmart.

[00:00:41]There's some good news and some also concerning news out of Walmart.

[00:00:46]First of all, Walmart just issued a worse than expected outlook as shoppers are hit by high gas prices.

[00:00:56]Right? But it's about to get worse cuz the gas prices aren't going down.

[00:01:00]And interest rates are about ready to spike and we'll get into that second part of that in just a few minutes. But first of all, Walmart shares dropped over 7% with this outlook. Walmart issued a worse than expected financial outlook amidst soaring gas prices. Finance chief John Rainey said high tax returns may have muted some of the impact high gas prices had on shoppers in the first quarter indicating consumer pressures could rise in the coming quarter, the current quarter, which will see the final numbers at the end of June for the second quarter.

[00:01:33]Uh but the warnings are out there and again, in the first quarter, a lot of shoppers and consumers in general were helped by these tax returns, larger than average tax returns. But the problem is, if you look at the savings rate, those tax returns are already spent because the savings rate, even though it went up a little bit, dropped again and we're still near the 40-year low savings rate.

[00:01:56]A lot of people continue to just scrape by. And the people that are spending the most are the top 10% who still make up about 50% of all the US consumer spending. We've never seen this before in the history of the US. It's been like that for a few months, but if you look at all the different years, we've never had this consecutive this many consecutive years with this low savings rate. So, people are just continuing to scrape by, robbing Peter to pay Paul, taking money out of their 401k, working multiple jobs, side hustle gig economy jobs, also not saving money. Uh so, it's very concerning what's happening, but Walmart, the big box retailer, issued first quarter results.

[00:02:41]And the expectations were or the results were a little bit better than expected, but the next quarter, which is the current quarter, which we'll get the results at the end of June, uh that's where the warning came in.

[00:02:54]And basically, they're saying that consumers are all but tapped out. But, there is some good news because they're going to maybe come to the rescue for some of these people that are barely scraping by. It looks like Walmart may be attempting to come to the rescue of these people that are going to be really cash crunched here in the second quarter 2026. Walmart plans price cuts using tariff refunds as shoppers get skittish.

[00:03:20]So, is it really happening? Is there a company that's going to use the tax refunds for something good? And maybe give some discounts. Walmart will likely put its tariff refunds towards the lowering store prices, executives said on Thursday as they described shoppers who are increasingly anxious about the rising cost of fuel and overall price inflation. In recent weeks, visitors to Walmart gas stations have begun to fill up with fewer than 10 gallons for the first time since 2022. I saw this couple weeks ago at a gas station.

[00:03:51]Somebody came up in a very nice car, got like 1 gallon of gas.

[00:03:56]Could have been that they were just filling it up to top it off. Maybe it was a rental car. Maybe they borrowed it from somebody and just wanted to put, you know, top it off or whatever. Or it could have been they didn't have the money. Um but for the first time since 2022, uh this is the biggest number of people that got 10 or 10 gallons or less. Uh and that's the chief financial officer, John David Rainey, said that. He told investors on an earnings call. He said, "That's an indication of stress."

[00:04:23]Quote, "We see our customers that the high-income customer is spending with confidence, while the lower-income customer is more budget conscious and perhaps navigating financial distress."

[00:04:35]Unquote. And that's true. When you look at the top 10%, they make up about half of the consumer spending. So, what he says makes perfect sense in what he's seeing with the Walmart customer base. Now, what do you think? Do you think Walmart's really going to give price cuts?

[00:04:51]Um to many different products? Or are they going to use that money to go back buy back their own stock? Or to give bigger payouts to the CEO? To me, it sounds a little bit too good to be true, but we'll see what happens. The US government last week began refunding tariff payments to importers that paid higher customer fees or customs fees, rather, imposed by this administration.

[00:05:15]Uh before the Supreme Court struck down most of them, Walmart is now the largest retailer to suggest that it will put those refunds towards potential price cuts. So, a little bit of good news.

[00:05:26]People say, sometimes people say I don't have good news. This could be good news.

[00:05:31]We'll see if it pans out, though. Quote, "We think that the single best return that we can make, uh that we can have on dollar of capital right now, is to invest in the customer. Invest in price," Rainey said.

[00:05:43]Noting that Walmart stores and gas stations have been drawing more shoppers looking for deals. US sales grew 4.1% from February through April.

[00:05:53]We said this all along that Walmart's going to see more shoppers, people going from Target now to Walmart, people going from uh expensive grocery stores. I think Ralphs is expensive. We have Ralphs out here in California.

[00:06:07]Uh Stater Bros kind of expensive. We have that up in north of where I'm at, Stater Bros stores, Vons and Albertsons are the big ones uh here in California. Uh pricey, very pricey. I like I've said this before, I like Grocery Outlet, I like uh Walmart grocery and my other uh one I can't even think of it right now. Aldi, I really like the prices at Aldi.

[00:06:30]And uh I've been really watching what I eat lately and I've been finding some good healthy things at those stores for good prices.

[00:06:36]Uh shoppers slightly bigger tax refunds this year seem to be offsetting some of the budget pain so far as we talked about earlier.

[00:06:43]And that was echoed by Home Depot and Target and Lowe's, which also held earnings calls this week. And all three companies had similar outlooks on what's happening with the consumer, saying that a lot of these customers uh running out of tax refunds and that this quarter could be a lot of pain and struggle for a lot of people. So hopefully we'll see more companies come out and give some price cuts and actually do something good with money they're getting from the tariffs. Now remember, if you go back, originally a lot of people said the tariffs wouldn't even have any impact, that nobody was going to pay for it, that it wouldn't have wouldn't cause inflation. Well, obviously it did. We know that now in hindsight, but if you needed any more evidence, now there's tariff refunds getting paid out to these companies to try to make up for what they had to pay in higher costs. So that answers the question right there. Did tariffs have an effect? Answer is definitely yes.

[00:07:41]Now if you needed any more evidence that the US consumer was trashed, well, here's something else to consider.

[00:07:49]US credit card delinquencies surged to the highest level since 2010. So, So, just what we warned about, it just got worse.

[00:07:58]Uh United States consumers are falling behind on debt payments at a crisis pace as serious credit card delinquencies surged 13% during the first quarter of 2026.

[00:08:09]And this was with the larger than expected or larger than normal tax returns. So, imagine what's going to happen in the coming quarters, especially with what's happened in the bond market, the rising yields, which is going to mean even higher interest rates here in the next few quarters.

[00:08:26]Um marking the highest level seen in 15 years as reported by Deetic Finance.

[00:08:34]The current figures represent a 0.4% point increase from the previous quarter.

[00:08:40]Not a huge increase, but when you look at the levels, the levels are already high. So, it just got worse though.

[00:08:45]Sitting just below the 2010 peak at 13.7% recorded the following following the 2008 financial crisis. So, yeah, 2010 was still getting out of the financial crisis.

[00:08:59]Um financial commentators have raised concerns over the rapid acceleration of household financial stress across multiple loan sectors. We're seeing it in pretty much every type of loan.

[00:09:10]Regarding the rapid escalation of consumer debt defaults, a social media publication gave a stark assessment of the current economic environment.

[00:09:20]Quote, US consumers are falling behind on debt at a crisis pace, said the Kobisi Letter.

[00:09:31]Think I've talked about that before.

[00:09:32]Uh the financial commentary group noted that since the the quarter of 2022, serious credit card delinquencies have increased by almost 6%.

[00:09:42]This trajectory outpaces the 3.9% increase observed during the multi-year period spanning from 2007 to 2010. So, the pace of delinquencies and the accumulation of debt is worse now than what it was during the financial crisis from 2010 or from 2007 to 2010.

[00:10:03]And again, this last quarter, consumers had a little bit of help. What's going to happen when the help runs out and if the rates go even higher? Is somebody going to come in to stop this or is this going to continue to get worse? And what's it going to equal? I mean, let me know your thoughts down in comments. Are we headed towards the breaking point finally? Now, if you ask some people, they've already went past the breaking point. They filed bankruptcy. They've had to move in with mom and dad.

[00:10:27]Millions of people have already passed the point, right? So, if you say it hasn't happened yet, it's happened to a lot of a lot of people, millions of people. But, will it be the bulk of people or the majority of people that are now going to feel the financial distress?

[00:10:42]And I know there'll be some people out there saying nothing ever happens. It's the same old same old. Nothing's ever going to change. Well, maybe it hasn't changed for you, but you have to look around and pay attention and see what's going on. Things are changing. Look at this.

[00:10:54]Anxiety diagnosis by pediatricians up 300% in 10 years.

[00:11:01]300%.

[00:11:02]That's a lot. That's like double, triple, or quadruple.

[00:11:06]And I mean, it's got to be on the back of this higher cost of living, the cost of living crisis. Because what are the odds that with the worst inflation that we've seen in decades, we see the worst increase in these anxiety diagnosis?

[00:11:21]And a lot of it's financial. When you look at it, the number one stressor in relationships and causing problems for uh couples is financial stress.

[00:11:34]Anxiety showed the largest jump of any health condition tracked with that 300% increase over the decade.

[00:11:42]ADHD remained the single most common mental health concern seen at these uh primary care visits throughout the entire study. This was put out by StudyFinds.

[00:11:52]So, bottom line, folks, buckle up cuz it's about ready to get real. Hope you're in a good financial spot. And if you're not, I just hope you uh don't let it get to you. Don't let it stress you out because millions of others are in a any very tough financial position. That's why we need to invest.

[00:12:08]Need to uh be smart with our money. And I continue to invest and just try to uh do my best. I've got a family out here.

[00:12:14]I'm raising it in California.

[00:12:16]Um it would be very difficult to relocate right now. There's a lot of places I could go that would be a lot cheaper, but when you look at the whole family structure and in-laws and relatives and everything, kind of stuck here in California for now.

[00:12:28]We'll stick it out. I'm going to stick it out here. I'm not going to go to a lower-cost state for now, even though sometimes I want to, but uh it's complicated when you have a family. I mean, I'm sure you know if you if you're a parent, if you have a family, and if you're taking care of elderly uh family members as well.

[00:12:44]We just had one of them went to a nursing home. Um you understand what I'm saying. So, anyways, hope everybody's doing good. Uh keep stacking. We'll see you in the next report. Drop a comment.

[00:12:52]Let me know what you think about all this today.

[00:12:55]Big love and peace.