CE 100 Index Shrugs Off Concerns Over Consumer Spending, Surges 3.2%

Earnings season rolls on. For the CE 100 Index — which saw uniform gains across all pillars — quarterly reports and management commentary on earnings calls drove stock performance this past week.

The overall tone of the calls touched on uncertainty, and on shifts in consumer behavior, though the payments networks pointed to continued resilience. A seven-day winning streak in stocks, overall, capped by a strong jobs report on Friday, helped boost the fortunes of all 11 pillars that we track.

In the Live segment, which gained 5.7%, shares of Stride led the way, up more than 13%. The online learning company posted results this week that noted that total revenues were up 17.8%, to $613.4 million. General education-related revenues gathered 12.7%. Total enrollments surged by 21.1%. The midpoint of guidance anticipates 17% gains in consolidated top lines for the current fiscal year.

Olo shares were 16.3% higher, as the Eat segment marched ahead by 5.4%. Financial news sites such as Bloomberg reported that the company is in the midst of considering a sale.

Payments Names Gain

Payments-related names were front and center — and by extension, so was consumer spending. The payments networks were leaders of the pillar, which gained 1.8% overall.

Visa’s stock added 3.7%. Visa’s fiscal second quarter results underscored the continued displacement of cash in face-to-face commerce, the widening embrace of tap-to-pay technologies and rising commercial volumes — and notably, there’s been no consumer spending slowdown, according to management commentary. U.S. payments volume grew 6% and international payments volume grew 9%.

Ryan McInerney, CEO, said on the conference call with analysts that total credentials were up 7%, and the firm added 1 billion tokens to 13.7 billion. “Nearly 50% of our eCommerce transactions, globally, are tokenized,” he said.

McInerney said, “Halfway through our fiscal year, consumer spending has been resilient and strong, but there is much uncertainty. Focusing on the U.S., in Q2 and through April 21, we have not seen any signs of overall consumer spending weakening. While spending growth differs among consumer spend bands, with the most affluent growing the fastest, all spend bands remain resilient and consistent with past quarters.”

Also within the payments sphere, Mastercard’s results echoed that resilience.  Contactless payments continue to be a preferred method for consumers. Within the U.S., credit and debit spending gained 7% overall.

CEO Michael Miebach said on the conference call with analysts said that from a macro standpoint, “Consumer and business sentiment has weakened, primarily due to concerns surrounding the impact from tariffs and geopolitical tensions. On the other hand, so far this year, the fundamentals that support consumer spending have been solid and our drivers are generally stable.”

Miebach highlighted that 73% of all in-person switched transactions are contactless, and about 35% of all switched transactions are tokenized. Miebach continued, “In our data, we don’t really see significant ‘upfronting’ of spending. So that’s not a trend that came through. In the U.S., we see generally stable spending.”

In PayPal’s latest report, which propelled shares up 2.8%, and where agentic artificial intelligence was a key discussion point, total payment volume (TPV) grew 4% on a currency-neutral basis to $417 billion, while total active accounts increased to 436 million and monthly active accounts (MAAs) saw 2% year-over-year growth to 224 million. Transactions per active account (excluding PSP processing) increased by 4%.

The Branded Experiences segment, encompassing online checkout, debit cards and tap to pay, demonstrated particular strength, with TPV growing 8%, driven by growth in PayPal debit card TPV (over 100% growth) and Pay with Venmo TPV (over 50%).

Block offset some of these gains, as shares plummeted 19.9%.

The company reported results that looked for slowing top line growth in the periods ahead. The company’s supplementals indicated that in the first quarter, and as detailed across various line items, the use of Cash App has slowed markedly, as the number of Cash App monthly transacting members using the digital wallet showed 0% year-over-year growth, remaining stagnant at 57 million users. Cash App Card metrics slowed, to 7% growth in monthly transacting active users (at 25 million), where in previous quarters that growth rate had been in the midteen percentage points.

“We saw changes to consumer spending behavior that we believe impacted inflows and Cash App Card spend,” CEO Jack Dorsey said on the earnings call with analysts, adding, “During the quarter, nondiscretionary Cash App Card spend in areas like grocery and gas was more resilient, while we saw a more pronounced impact to discretionary spending in areas like travel and media. We believe this consumer softness was a key driver of our forecast miss.”