Consumer sentiment just hit its lowest point in 17 months, and you can feel it in the spending data. Holiday shopping plans are cooling off faster than expected—people are tightening their wallets as uncertainty creeps back in.

What's driving this shift? Could be inflation fatigue, job market jitters, or just general economic anxiety. Either way, when confidence drops this hard, it usually ripples through retail, equities, and even risk assets like crypto.

Retail stocks might take a hit if this trend holds. And for those watching macro signals in digital assets, weakening consumer spending often correlates with risk-off behavior across markets. Worth keeping an eye on how this plays out over the next quarter.