Provided by Dow Jones
By Geoffrey Rogow | Photographs by Evan Angelastro for The Wall Street Journal Thomas Lee has been dismissed and derided for being a permabull. The Wall Street analyst has also been right. On the morning of March 24, Mr. Lee, co-founder of research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors, told more than 1,000 clients on his firm s conference call that the market would hit new highs by the end of the summer. Mr. Lee s prediction was improbable. At that exact moment, the Covid-19 pandemic had brought New York to a standstill and several markets were breaking down. But by August, the market had returned to new highs.
Shoppers have a new mantra this year: Treat yourself.
Stuck at home and spending far less on travel, experiences and dining out, consumers are trading up on everything from designer handbags to diamond jewelry, according to industry executives and market-research firms.
The splurging defies the norms of past economic downturns, when consumers traded down to less-expensive items. And it isn’t only the well-off taking part. Less-affluent shoppers are buying items like premium spaghetti sauce or salon-worthy shampoo that was previously out of reach or thought to be not worth the price before the coronavirus pandemic forced people to curtail activities and isolate.