The market sold off some strong earnings reports this month. Our consumer data says the shoppers behind those companies never actually left. That disconnect is exactly the kind of setup our monthly Main Street Gut Check is built to surface — and August's edition is packed with them.
Used Cars Are Having a Moment
New car prices now average roughly $50,000, and consumers are voting with their clicks. Web visits to one leading online used-car retailer are up 59% year-over-year — a staggering surge that suggests the affordability squeeze is rerouting demand across the entire auto retail landscape.
The report digs into where those buyers are actually landing. Not every used-car name is capturing the wave equally, and the traffic patterns across the major players tell a very different story than the recent price action would suggest. One name in particular is showing consumer momentum that looks disconnected from how the Street is treating the stock.
AI Infrastructure: Following the Picks and Shovels
The AI trade has broadened well beyond the obvious chip names. Our data is picking up rising interest across the entire data center supply chain — the semiconductor equipment makers, the thermal and cooling specialists, and even the less glamorous industrial suppliers whose components are physically required to build these facilities.
One standout: a copper-tube manufacturer whose demand signals are up 49% year-over-year. Copper is the unsung hero of data center buildouts (power delivery, cooling loops, interconnects), and this niche industrial name is quietly riding the same wave as the trillion-dollar chip stories — with far less attention.
The Gut Check breaks down the full stack: the foundry powering the frontier chips, the design leader everyone knows, the power-and-cooling infrastructure play, and the observability software layer that keeps it all running. Each has a very different risk/reward profile right now.
Buy Now, Pay Later Keeps Climbing
Consumers are increasingly splitting purchases into installments, and the demand data across the BNPL group is hard to ignore. One leading pay-later platform is seeing demand up 48% heading into its late-August earnings report. And here's the kicker: every single stock in the BNPL group is trading at least 23% below its 52-week high.
That gap between accelerating consumer usage and beaten-down stock prices is the exact kind of dislocation worth studying carefully — whether you read it as opportunity or as a warning that the market sees something the demand data doesn't.
E-Commerce Signals and July Scorecard
We also grade last month's calls, including the mall-and-retail rally we flagged a full five weeks before it played out. Cross-border e-commerce, Latin American marketplaces, and the platform enablers powering independent merchants all show up in this month's data with fresh signals worth watching.
The Quiet Risks
Finally, we flag five household-name stocks where the consumer data is quietly deteriorating — companies you probably own or interact with weekly, where Main Street activity is telling a very different story than the current valuation implies. Alongside those, we publish our September watch list of names where the demand curves are just starting to inflect.
The full August Gut Check — with specific tickers, directional calls, and price levels for every name mentioned above — is available to Pro subscribers. Upgrade to see which used-car retailer, which copper play, and which BNPL name we think the market is mispricing right now.