Retailer Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is a historic winner, minting millionaires for the past several decades. You can see in this chart how the pandemic initially hurt consumer spending in the U.S. but quickly rebounded and resumed growth, thanks mainly to stimulus checks that were issued to keep the economy going during lockdowns. It seems that stimulus checks are in the rearview mirror, and consumers are currently working through a high-inflation environment, pushing the price of goods steadily higher.