Good morning. With fall in full swing, it seems like a good time to do a gut check on the state of the American consumer. I pored through financial results reported over the last two weeks by a variety of big retailers and found a mixed bag. Though there are pockets of optimism, it’s clear that consumers are worried. The big wild card going into the fall will be the full impact of tariffs, expected to be felt acutely in the second half of the year. Indeed, Best Buy had a strong second quarter but did not raise its full-year guidance during its late August earnings call because of the tariff uncertainty. Many companies rushed their buying in the spring before tariffs came into effect, but that can only shield them for so long. Here’s what some prominent CEOs are seeing.
Michael Bender, interim CEO of Kohl’s: “Consumers continue to be pressured and are being choiceful with their purchases … Lower to middle-income customers continue to prioritize value and are trading down into lower opening price point products.”
Todd Vasos, CEO of Dollar General: “Seeking value, we’re seeing that in all cohorts of customers, meaning our core customer, mid- and high-end customers, all of them.”
Ted Decker, CEO of Home Depot: “The No. 1 reason for deferring the large project is general economic uncertainty.”
Corie Barry, CEO of Best Buy: “We have seen both breadth and depth of promotions higher than last year and we assume that will continue. Customers continued to be resilient but deal-focused… In the current environment, customers continue to be thoughtful about big-ticket purchases and are willing to spend on high price point products when they need to or when there is technology innovation.”
Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart: “As we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we’ve continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters.”
Robert Ball, CFO of Abercrombie & Fitch: “Our customer doesn’t come to us for price. We’re not necessarily going to chase traffic and conversion through price … We’ve seen tariffs 1.0. We’ve seen the pandemic. We’ve seen inflation, cotton spikes, freight rate spikes, you name it, and those are just a couple of examples.”Many retailers have managed all the noise and macro angst capably, posting strong sales results for the first half of 2025. Walmart, Abercrombie & Fitch, Dollar General, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Costco to name just a few. But one thing’s for sure: When consumers get nervous, CEOs should be nervous too.—Phil Wahba
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
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The markets
S&P 500 futures were down 0.48% this morning. The index closed down 0.64% in its last trading session. STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.6% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.64% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.29%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.74%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.94%. India’s Nifty 50 was flat before the end of the session. Bitcoin rose to $110.6K.
Around the watercooler
Reeling after being widowed, Suzy Welch created NYU’s most popular b-school class ever, offering Gen Z the one thing they want most: purpose by Geoff Colvin
A tech founder says his son spurned the Ivy League as ‘unfun, judgey and biased against white boys’—he’s one of many heading South for college instead by Jeff John Roberts
This OpenAI engineer left her dream job and San Francisco home to move to Stockholm—all because of Trump 2.0 by Eleanor Pringle
How the midlife crisis was replaced by a decadelong rise in ‘young worker despair’ in the U.S.—and what it means for Gen Z by Nick Lichtenberg
Trump’s trade adviser says tariffs aren’t permanent after appeals court strikes down reciprocal duties by Jason Ma
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
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