What Stimulus?

I offer you these tidbits:

U.S. retail gasoline prices are now up a full buck from the lows, to $2.62 a gallon (up 41 days in a row) — the equivalent of a $130 billion drag on discretionary spending at an annual rate.

Tack on the 60bps bounce in mortgage rates too, which has triggered a near-60% collapse in mortgage refinancings.

Then tack onto that the 0.2% decline in average weekly earnings in May, down now in two of the last three months and a consumer relapse could well be in the offing and end up snuffing out this ballyhooed inventory-led recovery that has underpinned equities and undermined Treasuries over the last 3-4 months.