Jim Sullivan Percent Quotations

Consumer spending growth has generally been trending at about 2.5-to-3 percent at an annual rate -- not booming, but not terrible, ... The fact that the job market is still weak is restraining optimism a bit; hopefully, as the recovery gathers pace, we will start to see more job growth.

Certainly, the degree of strength through August is not sustainable; we'll get a much weaker number in September. But the third quarter as a whole will still show 5 to 6 percent consumer spending growth, even if we get a negative number in September.

We now expect the first hike to come in June. And rates could well be up at 2.00 percent by the end of the year.

We now expect the first hike to come in June, ... And rates could well be up at 2.00 percent by the end of the year.

Seventy percent of our Mazda customers spend an enormous amount of time on the Internet prior to coming to the dealership,

That real wage gain of 1.5 percent is pretty good by historical standards.

In our forecast, we see consumer spending slowing a little bit in the fourth quarter to 3.1 percent from 3.8 percent for the same period last year, ... The rationale is that as the housing market slows , there'll be a cooling effect in the home wealth effect and the fluctuating energy prices will also have some drag on spending in the months ahead.