First Trust Monday Morning Outlook: Still Growing
No one should be popping champagne when they see Thursday’s GDP report. The good news is that it won’t be negative. The bad news is that even if it hits our estimate of 2.1% this is a far cry from the robust growth of the economic expansions in the 1980s and 1990s. The US is in desperate need of policies that raise the long-term growth of the US economy, policies that encourage more capital formation, better education, and making it easier to raise the next generation. In the meantime, we still think the US is headed toward a recession, but it wasn’t in one in the second quarter. Be careful, though. While some others say we can’t fall into a recession because the job market is so strong, it’s important to realize that the job market is almost always at or near a peak when the economy enters a recession. This doesn’t mean the recession has to be anywhere near as severe as the COVID Lockdown or even the Great Recession/Financial Panic of 2008-09. But even a mild recession will bring some pain. In the meantime, however, the economy grew at a moderate rate in Q2, which we estimate at 2.1% annualized. Consumption: “Real” (inflation-adjusted) retail sales outside the auto sector declined at a 3.3% annual rate in Q2. However, sales of autos and light trucks increased at a 9.5% rate and it looks like real services, which makes up most of consumer spending, should be up at about a 2.5% pace. Putting it all together, we estimate that real consumer spending on goods and services, combined, increased at a tepid 1.2% rate, adding 0.8 points to the real GDP growth rate (1.2 times the consumption share of GDP, which is 68%, equals 0.8).
Date/Time (CST) | U.S. Economic Data | Consensus | First Trust | Actual | Previous |
7-25 / 9:00 am | New Home Sales - Jun | 0.725K | 0.735 Mil | 0.763 Mil | |
7-27 / 7:30 am | Initial Claims - Jul 22 | 235K | 230K | 228K | |
7:30 am | Q2 GDP Advance Report | +1.8% | +2.1% | +2.0% | |
7:30 am | Q2 GDP Chain Price Index | +3.1% | +2.7% | +4.1% | |
7:30 am | Durable Goods - Jun | +1.0% | +7.0% | +1.8% | |
7:30 am | Durable Goods (Ex-Trans) - Jun | +0.1% | +0.3% | +0.7% | |
7-28 / 7:30 am | Personal Income - Jun | +0.5% | +0.5% | +0.4% | |
7:30 am | Personal Spending - Jun | +0.4% | +0.4% | +0.1% | |
9:00 am | U. Mich Consumer Sentiment - Jul | 72.6 | 73.0 | 72.6 |