For most of the year. But recently there have been signs spending may be slowing, or at least taking a breather. Today, that notion was put on the ba burner when a Retail Trade Group issued an upbeat forecast said it expects americans to spend a lot this Holiday Season. The most important time of the year for Courtney Reagan reporte you may just be warming Pumpkin Spice latte season but its time to start thinkin about holidays. Sure there is an ele unlike any other and potential rate hike between now and christmas, but neither donald trump, hillary or janet yellen are wearing their scrooge suits. Th National Retail federation is projecting a 3. 6 increase over last year. Stronger than last years 3 growth, below estimates, because December Tempe in the 60s in much of the country hit retailers hard. The groups chief economists, more are up. The valuation shocked Investor Confidence we havent had an event like that this season. Political unrest be darned, santa is bullish. But not everyone is ready to predict a guaranteed holiday home run thi certain the Economic Data would indicate the son assumer is in a good place right now. Where the disconnect is, is where the Consumer Spending, which has been weak in recent months. Cey the election coulde part of the overhang with the consumer, or watch and see if maybe as those clouds lift if the consumer doesnt get out to spend. Still the retail lobby group isnt alone. Deloitte proje total holiday sales to improve somewhere between 3. 2 and 4 . Thats pretty strong and a lot better than gdp growth. Upwards of 85 of retail sales still come from physical stores, the Online Shopping influence is growing. Online only holiday sales are expected to continue their exponent growth trend, similar to years past, consumers looking for the best merchandise at great prices and for online shopper, free fast shipping and near returns is a requirement. Analysts are in for great bar begins this year. We like names Like Ross Stores and Department Stores could be in a good position here because of better inventory trends in terms of tighter manageme of inventory, as well as good demand and better weather. We like nordstrom. We have a neutral rating on macys, however we acknowledge that sales trend could be good. R beauty and ath leisure trends will help you will at that and lululemon to be giftgiving destinations. Im Courtney Reagan. Scott hoyt joins us now to talk more about what he is expecting from the consumer in the months ahead. He is senior director of consumer econo at moodys analytics. Welcome, scott. Nice to have you here. Nice to be here. Courtney laid out some of the basics, but we did have some worrisome dat back in august. Was that a oneoff . And is the consumer going to be the driving force for the economy as we enter into the Holiday Season . Yes. We do think that was a oneoff. It was largely driven by a temporary decline in vehicle sales. We do think consumers will continue to drive the economy as we go forward. What kind of a Holiday Season will it be . Do you thi that we wi see a lot of discounting . Consumers are pretty much used to the fact that theyre going to get good bargains. Yeah. Im not sure how much it will be discounting and how much it will just be the fact that prices arent rising very much, or in some cases declining. But i think consumers will get good bargains this year. What abou eney prices . We did see a pickup in Consumer Spending when Energy Prices turned south. But thats changed considerably. How big a factor will that be . I think that will just be a small factor. Energy prices are rising, but theyre only really inching up, not moving up rapidly. And seasonally, prices tend to be soft this time of year barring some unexpected event, we dont think Energy Prices are going to be a big factor for consumers this Holiday Season. Other people feel as though the election, even though, obviously, it comes before the Holiday Season, but regardless of who wins the white house, that that may be a disrupter, if you will, for Consumer Spending. Do you view it that way or not . We think thats unlikely. Past elections have not disrupted spending. While this one is different, so its something we need to watch for, thats not our our assumption is that it wont be disruptive all right. Well leave it there. Scott, tha. Scott hoyt with moodys analytics. That upbeat Spending Outlook was not enough to lift stocks as a rising dollar pressured equities. Investors were also focused on comments from richmond fed president , jeffrey lacquer, who said there is a strong case to raise interes rates and keep inflatio as a result, the Dow Jones Industrial ave lost 85 points to 18,168. The nasdaq was down 11, and the s p 500 dropped 10. The International Monetary fund cut its growth forecast for the u. S. And said the World Economy is moving sideways. The agency said the u. S. And europe have both been hampered by weak productivity growth, aging populations, and income gains that have for the most part gon to the highest earners. Th imf also said the isolatio trend could likely depress gr believe it or not, earnings season is almost upon us and this quarter could possibly bring an end to a troubling trend. Bob pisani explains why quarterly res may be at a turning point. Reporte the earnings recessio may be about to end. Heres why. On the surface, the news is kind of gloomy. The third qua earnings for the s p 500 are set to decline 0. 5 compared to the same period a year ago. This will be the fifth consecute quarter of earnings decline for the s p 500. It would be the worst showing since 2007 2009. But this is the good news. Theres a good chance that all of this could possibly change. So thats because Revenue Growth is turning positive. Revenue growth, top line growth, is really the key to earnings growth. Revenue growth tends to lead earnings growth. Now, Revenue Growth is very broadbased right now 9 of the 11 sectors expecting growth with notable gains expected from several big sectors consumer discretiy like retail stocks, health care, as well as technology. Several sectors are leading the Revenue Growth story starting with technology. Thats because all the companies that make semi conductors, broadcom, intel, micron, invidia, all beneficiaries of the need for new memory chips in the phones were buying and virtual reali devices were buying, as well the drive for chips that use less energy and are less draining on batteries. Then there is Cloud Technology and the relentless need to store data. It require bigger, better and faster chips. Its not Just Technology with stronger revenue gains overall. Several healt sectors will also have strong aid. Pharmaceuts like bristols and hmos like aetna and sigma are also set to report very Strong Revenue what about energ and oil and Gas Companies are still the biggest drag on earnings and revenues. Oil closer to 50 tha 40, Even Oil Companies may have a much better fourth quarter. For nightly busine m bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. Hurri matthew winds and rain pummeled haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Now as that storm makes its way north, the governor of south ca is calling for an evacuati of coastal communits s and preparations are under way in florida, where governor rick scott declare state of emergenc protecting life is our number on. If matthew directly impacts florida, therel be massive de that we havent seen. This is a deadly storm approachg our coast. I cannot stres and take a look at this amazing picture. Today nasa released powerful images of Hurricane Matthew tan from the International Space station. Joining us now to help put Hurricane Matthews impact on the u. S. Into context is dan leonard, senior meteorologist at the weather company. Dan, nice to have you here. Good to see hi, sue. This is obviously a monster storm, and you say one of the things that will be a story here is the fact that its not going to come ashore in the traditio yes. This is what really makes matthew the most interesting storm that ive dealt with in a long time, sue. And thats the fact that it doesnt look like its going to make a traditional landfall. Now, if you think of traditional landfallin hurricanes they sort of come on shore in a specific poi and you have a lot of damage right at that landfall point and then less damage on the outside, sort of further away from the eye. This time around, it looks like matthew may actually skirt the coast or just stay just offshore of the coast from florida all the way through the carolinas. That, in fact, happens, you wont have the pinpoint really strong damage that you get with an eye that comes on shore, but what you will get is a lot of moderate to extensive damage over a long stretch of shoreline from anywhere from West Palm Beach all the way up through north carolina. This is a very interesting and perhaps very devastating storm for the southeast, sue. Economically, too, i mean, we its being compared to hurrican floyd, which did an enormous amount of monetary damage. What can you glean from matthew at this point . If anything . Its too early to say this will be a floyd repeat. Certainly, the potential is there. What we have to really worry about at this point is whether there wi be any additional strengthen now its a category 4 and looks like it will maintain at least category 3 status as it approaches flo on thursday. Obviously, a category 4 would be much more impactful than a category 2 or 3. So i think thats really the wild card right now at this point. And how much dam there will be. But i will say this. This does look like its going to be sit amount of damage, whether or not we get to that floyd level or not, im not quite sure yet. But, yes, there is the possibily that we will get there, sue. All right. We will be watching very closely as you will be, dan. Thank you very much. Dan leonard with the weather company. Sti ahead, why theres one issue in particular that Small Business owners are focused on th senator david vitter says that wells fargo and that fake account scandal has impacted about 10,000 Small Business owners. Acg to reuters, senator vitter wrote a letter to ceo john stumpf, demanding a full accounting of Small Business owners affected by what he called f. Safety regulators have launched an investigation into the safety of brakes on certain f150 pickup trucks. The topselling vehicle in the u. S. Owners of some 2015 and 2016 model years have described a, quote, sudden and complete loss of braking. The investigation covers about 280,000 pi and a warning from johnson n to users of one of its insulin pumps. It could be vulnerable to a hack. Meg terrell has more on the latest m devic facing a cyber se reporte more than 100,000 people with diabetics recently got a strange letter from johnson johnson. The health care giant was warning them about a Cyber Security risk with one of its insulin pumps. The onetouch ping insulin pump system comes with a Remote Control to enable delivery of insulin. Has been harme in this way, but it is possible someone could hack into the device and control insulin delivery. We need to give users and pati the information so that way they can determine if its too risky for them or not risky for them. Jay radcliffe is the research who made the discovery. E he works in Cyber Security at firm rapid 7, his work on the insulin pump was a side project. Hes diabetic, and it was his pump on which he did the research. S is just out of my o perm curiosity how these devices work and how safe they are for my own personal use as a diabetic. He says the probabil unauthor access to the one touch ping system is extremely low. Somee would have to be within 25 feet of the person wearing the device. And have extremely specialized skills. To mention, harmful intention. The company says there are ways to mitigate the risk. Turning off the radio frequency feature, limiting how much insulin can be delivered at once and setting a vibrating alert system. The device is eight years old. Newer systems, j j says, have encrypti technology that would be harder to hack. It says this issue doesnt exist in other products. But Cyber Security in medical devices is a growing area of focus. The food and issued guidance to manufacturers in january and in august, a Security Firm issued a report on hard devices made by st. Jude medical. Alleged the devices could be hacked in ways that makes them malfunction or lose battery power. The fda says its investigating. St. Jude cites an external report and sued both muddy waters and med tech. As for radcliffe, he doesnt use that pump any more but not because his findings. Johnson johns and rapid 7 worked hard attesting out the mitigation strategies and solution we published. Especial turning off the radio frequency portion, works 100 at eliminatin the risk. R for nightly bu im meg tirrel olive garden bucks the trend. Re chain operator darden posted better than expected earnings raised its guidance thanks to the Olive Gardens eighth consecuti quart of samestore growth. Darden also buying back up to 500 million worth of shares. Shares were up just a fraction at 61. 72. Sears has reportedly attracted intere for its craftsman tool business. Bloomberg says stanley, black and decker and techtronic industri made some bids. The winning offer bu due by we t en of the month. Sears rose to 12. 10. Google unveiled its new flagship smartphones, the pixel and xl. The phones replace googles prior smartphone venture called the nexis, and directly take on apples iphone. Shares of googles parent al were up a fraction to and yahoo reportedly scanned hundr of millions of its users incoming emails for u. S. Intel reuters says the tech giant built a Custom Software program to search the emails to comply with the classified u. S. Government demands. It could be the first time a u. S. Internet company agreed to a government request to certain all incoming mail. Yahoo shares were up a nickel to 43. 18. As the two Vice President i cand get ready for their first and only debate, Small Business owners are focused on health ce and policy. And what changes if any may be ahead. And how that might impact their livelihood kate rogers reporte just over a month ago until the november elections, sma biness owners like Pedro Alfonso are wondering what a new administration might mean for the nations healt alfonso is ceo of washington, d. C. Based dynamics inc. Hes long offered insurance to his staff of more than 300, but says the Affordable Care act spiked costs. We have had a increase in costs that jumped last year. So w been impacted from all angles when it comes to Affordable Care act. For right now, for the next decade, were takin reporte hes also sought consulti help, implemented a new Accounting System and even hired a new worker to help navigate the complexities. While he doesnt support a full repeal of the law as republican nominee donal has proposed, its unclear what democrat nominee Hillary Clintons pla to strengthen obamacares protections might me for costs. As a Small Business owner, as an american that cares about our employees, we want them to have good health care. We want healthy employees. Affordable care has good u know, but theres costs and theres the benefits of those costs. And we just as a Small Business owner want a balance. Reporte alfonso isnt alone. Acg to the national federati of independent bu, health is the number one issue for Small Companies thi year, with 70 citing costs as their top concern. Separat data from the national Small Business associat finds that 42 of small compani say they have even contacted lawmakers about he in tucson, arizona, schaeffer has been hit with higher costs due to the employer mandate which kicked in this year. He runs a dry cleaning and laundry business with 52 fulltimworker un the law, any business with more than 50 fulltime emplo working more 30 hours a week have to offer coverage or face penalties of up to 2,000 per worker, per year. But beyond costs, schaeffer says better plan and compete. So i dont know how to plan for aca, because i dont k whats going to happen. I dont kn goi to happen in washington thats going to change things. I dont kn what going to happen in the insurance marketpl that going to change things. And im going to have to react to that instantaneously, and i just hope that i will be able to do so. Both businesses say theyre still undecided evaluating plans and searching for more detail as november 8th edges closer and closer. Fo nightly busine im kate r coming up, new menu . How Tech Companies disrupted, li