Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

BUYZ

Market cap $8.49M

When the Halloween decorations go away, holiday shopping begins. Each year consumers continue to surprise us with enthusiastic spending despite inflationary pressure.

Lack of specific plans in Tesla's robotaxi event boosted competitor Uber's stock by a great magnitude on Oct. 11, 2024.

Despite uncertainty in consumer strength, consumer discretionary stocks still pulled ahead of consumer staples stocks for most of 2023.That was driven by mega-cap stocks like Amazon (AMZN) and Tesla (TSLA). But recently, the consumer staples sector — including big box and discount retailers — has outperformed the consumer discretionary sector.

Uber stock fell post reporting Q1 earnings as the company provided downbeat outlook. However, its peer company Lyft gained in share price post earnings.

In its latest report released last December, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) estimates that the digital economy now represents 10% of the total U.S. GDP, or $2.6 trillion.  The digital economy is also growing at an average annual growth rate of 7.1%.

Explaining consumer spending involves a lot of contradictions. Consumer spending is strong.

Explaining consumer spending involves a lot of contradictions. Consumer spending is strong.

2023 was a year of surprises. These are five key sector themes illustrated in charts that dominated the ETF world this past year.

Recent data point to a record shopping season for Shopify (SHOP), which saw Black Friday sales grow 22% y/y. Additional reports from Adobe Analytics show a strong $9.8 billion Black Friday season.

Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion behemoth, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the United States.