Name: Alliance Data CEO Ed Heffernan is Optimistic About Economy Outlook
Uploaded: 2017-12-06
Duration: 4 min 33 s
Description: Good jobs growth and expanding businesses are just a few of the reasons his data points to a “bullish” 2018.

Fred, thanks to all the data that Alliance Data Systems gathers. A ton of information about consumers. Where they live, and what car they drive. And what they like to buy, how they shop. As you analyze all that stuff, what does it tell you about how consumers are feeling these days? What's their mood when it comes to spending and buying and saving? What we're seeing is across the board, the consumer is finally beginning to open up a little bit more. Whereas post great recession, for years it was sort of a is this for real, or not for real? And it turns out it looks like this one's for real. So when it comes to things like buying big ticket items, let's say a car, or a computer, or buying a home, what are consumer attitudes about all that? Sure, on the car side it's been a booming for years and so the question is, how much higher can it go. What we're seeing is that the consumer is still very interested in shopping for cars, but it's not at the huge levels Of growth that we saw in the past, so maybe it stabilizes out at this level. From a homeownership perspective, what we're seeing is more comfort in actually going out there. There question is, is the stock of homes available, so that these consumers can actually buy their first home? Because there was such a pullback post great recession We're just now beginning to replenish the housing stock in the U. S. And we're also dealing with the whole issue that interest rates are going up. How much are people factoring that in their decisions. Or is it too early. I think it's too early to say about the interest rates. When you're seeing a 4. 5 % mortgage out there. I think that's pretty attractive and it's going to take a while before people get scared off. So for all the data that you're tracking right now, what does this mean for retailers, whether traditional retailers or online retailers, as they're gearing up for the holiday shopping season. From a consumer spend perspective, again, we're seeing consumer spending Retail is not dead. Far from dead. But areas like soft goods retail. Like jewelry, like home furnishing. What we're seeing is the spending is there. The consumer is spending. And so we would expect to see good numbers on the holiday season this year. What the concern probably is Is more of how much of that spend translates into profit for the retailers, because these consumers are a lot smarter today. So I'm going to get some forecast from you. Looking ahead to 2018, Sure. How do you think the economy's going to do. What's your forecast? I believe the economy is actually Picked up a bit from what we saw sort of over the last five, six years. What you're seeing is business investment and confidence from business leaders has picked up. We're seeing more comfort with business executives actually making those big commitments. And as those go, so go the jobs. And so we think that both from the consumer side and now the business side. We think there could be an acceleration above sort of that long term 2 % growth rate that we've been seeing for a while. How about the job market? From what you're saying it sounds like there could be more hiring .>> Others look to our company. We have 20, 000 employees. And the question is, is it getting more difficult to bring in the same level of quality that we could do three, four, five years ago. We're beginning to see some tightening there. There's no question about it. That the supply of jobs is now beginning to put pressure on The demand that's out there. So I think it's gonna be a little bit tougher. Talk to us a little bit about the stock market, the financial market. It's been on a tear, so many records. More of the same Can't go along with it. And the monetary policy, while it's tightening a little bit, it's really not that much. And so, it's fairly accommodative out there. And along with decent earnings, good jobs growth, we're fairly bullish. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Alliance Data CEO Ed Heffernan is Optimistic About Economy Outlook

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Good jobs growth and expanding businesses are just a few of the reasons his data points to a “bullish” 2018.