Below is a chart and brief excerpt from today's Early Look written by Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough.

CHART OF THE DAY: The Consumer Is Good? LOL - weak consumer cartoon 10.16.20141

With the SP500 +0.3% yesterday and the beloved “Consumer is in great shape” stocks (Consumer Discretionary, XLY) down -0.4% on the day, I’m not sure that’s as “big” as he was expecting into the US market close, but damn the details!

US Consumer Discretionary Earnings went NEGATIVE year-over-year for the 1st time since the last Cycle peaked.

Amidst all of the consensus talk about earnings being “better than expected” (in some Sectors like Utilities which have aggregate year-over-year EPS growth of +9.9% here in Q3, they’re way better than expected!)…

Consumer Discretionary earnings are DOWN for the 2nd quarter in a row and worse than any Consumer bull expected 6-12 months ago. But no worries, the Old Wall Consensus estimate for Consumer Discretionary Earnings Growth is +10-14% for the first half of 2020…

CHART OF THE DAY: The Consumer Is Good? LOL - Chart of the Day