Oracle stock falls after report reveals thin margins in AI cloud business
Retail sales are the perfect example of how inflation can distort the data. Here are the results over the last 4 years:
- April 2021 - April 2025
- Total (EPA:TTEF) retail sales: +19%
- Real (inflation-adjusted) retail sales: -1%
This means that we are paying more for the same amount of goods. And this is against the backdrop of most retailers (like Walmart (NYSE:WMT) announcing price hikes in the near future.
April’s results were slightly better than expected. The street was expecting no change, but we were able to squeak out a gain of 0.1%.
Only 5 of 13 categories gained for the month. The gain in building materials (+0.8%) is probably related to the tariff issue. I was surprised to see Food services & bars (+1.2%) lead the gains, since that is considered more of a discretionary category, and not something you typically see when consumers are pulling back.
Not much resistance left for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq (QQQ). We hit a resistance level in the small caps (IWM) at $209, which was the March 25th swing high. The next resistance level comes in around $215.