Starbucks (SBUX) retail sales disappointed in July, and analysts predicted August increases to be somewhere in the 4-5% range. Most predicted closer to 4%.Today Starbucks reported retails revenue of $617M for August -- a not-so-shabby 5% increase. It's a little early to tell whether we can identify a tightening (or loosening) of consumer budgets affecting discretionary spending. Analysts are waiting and watching SBUX, which, I see from my googling daily, is one very popular benchmark that economists and financial analyst love to use to gauge this kind of spending. Starbucks maintained its "buy" earlier this week from Dan Geiman of McAdams Wright Ragen.
Cramer on BloggingStocks: The Fed's push for TARP payback 
Hewlett-Packard reports growth in profit and operating margin in Q4
Before the bell: Stocks futures steady ahead of GDP, housing data
