The summer of Barbenheimer, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift, wasn’t just good fun, it was also good (and big) business. But now, Morgan Stanley warns in an analyst note, winter is coming.
Morgan Stanley economist Sarah A. Wolfe estimates the two concert tours and Barbenheimer added about $8.5 billion to U.S. growth in the third quarter, encompassing the summer spending months. When that windfall evaporates, she warns, so will the accompanying 2% increase in consumer spending, which prompts the question: Was the ebullient American consumer, often female-oriented, the only thing that staved off the long-predicted recession?
