A Wall Street vet’s Walmart recession indicator just hit its highest point since 2008—and he says the fear ‘just keeps multiplying’

walmart shoppers (Credit: David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Forget the Fed. Forget nonfarm employment. Forget even industrial production and real income. For Jim Paulsen, the real recession indicator is watching Walmart.

Paulsen, former chief investment strategist at investment research firm the Leuthold Group, devised an indicator he dubs the “Walmart Recession Signal” (WRS), which tracks the stock price of Walmart against the S&P Global Luxury Index, a basket of 80 companies producing or distributing luxury goods. He said that since economic downturns are usually felt first by lower-income individuals, an increase in Walmart’s stock price could indicate a potential economic downturn.