We've got a sell-off. Dow is down 770. The markets are all over the place and so is the VIX. The VIX is the fear index for the markets and it is on track for its highest close since July 29. Just a second ago, it was up 11%. Now it's up 4.7%. Earlier, because I track this stuff, because I'm a nerd, we had the VIX moving down 2%. That was before the Fed announced that it was tightening interest rates to quell inflation by 25 basis points. Wall Street fear gauge is jumping though as Fed Chair Kevin Warsh struck a pretty hawkish tone during his press conference today, working very hard to dislodge inflation from its perch. It just is stuck at anywhere, depending on the metric you're looking at, above 2%, even above 3% in some cases. As he fights it, he's up against rising oil prices which are adding to the market anxieties. Those higher oil prices are putting the American consumer on high alert. During today's news conference, Fed Chair Warsh was asked if a series of smaller rate hikes would even be effective when it comes to tackling the inflationary pressures consumers are facing with very high energy costs.
We cannot affect any individual price, whether it be oil prices, whether it be food at the grocery store. But what we can do and will do is ensure that any change in relative prices don't broaden out, don't have second and third order effects in the economy. And that's what we're tasked to do and we will do.
He's going to do it. He said multiple times, he's going to do this, despite inflation still holding above 3%. U.S. shoppers, the most fresh data that we got this morning show they remain resilient. Retail sales jumped much stronger than expected, 1.2% just month-over-month. Just month-over-month jumped 1.2% in August with core sales surging 1.4%. And then, you wonder, will the momentum continue into the holiday shopping season? Perfect person to talk to about all of this, although I'm not sure he's thrilled with what happened today, is Fox Business exclusive, Tanger CEO Stephen Yalof, with some of the most popular malls out there that are really fascinating to watch when it comes to just kind of gauging how the consumer is doing. First, what do you think this rate tightening will do to your business?
Well, first of all, we have a very strong balance sheet. So thankfully, we've done a really good job of keeping that sort of bulletproof condition and refinanced a lot of the outstanding debt that we had. And our next major debt event isn't for another...
Servicing your debt, you got that under control. Too bad that the U.S. government can't, because we have 40 plus trillion dollars in debt and just to service that, to give perspective here, costs more than the entire Pentagon budget.
Well, look. The fortunate piece of the information, I guess, is when the rate move is definitely reflective of a stronger economy, great jobs market, and these are the kind of things you root for when you're in our business.
Tell me exactly how you see things playing out at your outlet malls. Where are people spending the most? Which parts of the country?
Well, primarily we're in the Southeast, but our shopping centers, particularly over the course of the summer, have really fared well across the entire country. So we have 42 shopping centers, 38 in the value space and the other four are full-price. What we're finding is the customer is looking for not only that value shopping experience. They are also looking for food and beverage because you saw the numbers today, the food and beverage numbers were up. Entertainment, unbelievable movie, list of movies that came out this year and obviously entertainment is doing extraordinarily well. And then of course the apparel, footwear and the cosmetics, health and beauty is leading the charge. And because of that, our centers are seeing customers come far more frequently, stay longer when they're there and ultimately spend more in these environments.
We're looking at it from the surface. People walking in, purchasing something, here come the holidays, great. However, to get all of that product in all of your stores, in your malls, takes trucks, and trucks use diesel. Diesel fuel has skyrocketed to the highest on record and if we look exactly where they are, they are hitting another all-time high today of about $6.31 a gallon. The regular, that's up 69% since the Iran war. And then you take that. That works its way through every single item that people want to buy, does it not?
It sure does. Thankfully, the value platform seems to be the most resilient in times where there is the greatest economic stress. It's so interesting about the brick-and-mortar space and it's really important. First of all, in the online space, and obviously we talk about online retailing all the time, but online retailing, we're finding there's a tremendous amount of returns. Returns in online retailing, obviously you're talking about trucks and you're talking about moving product multiple times. We find that the brick-and-mortar environment is the best place for the customer, for the retailer to put their product in front of the customer and get the best margin.
