The GDPnow estimate is 1.5 percent vs the Econoday consensus of 2.3 percent.
GDPNow Key Measures
- Base Forecast: 1.5%
- Real Final Sales: 2.0%
- Real Final Private Domestic Sales: 3.4%
The difference between the base forecast and real final sales is change in private inventories (CIPI) which nets to zero over time.
Contributions to GDP
Real final sales at 2.0 percent is the bottom line estimate for the economy.
Some prefer to look at real final private domestic sales. That’s a much better 3.4 percent.
The pessimists will point to the top line estimate of 1.5 percent.
I tend to follow Real Final Sales.
The Fed watches private domestic sales. If so, that’s a fairly strong number and no reason to delay hikes if they want to.
However, these are estimates.
FOMC Fed Decision Wednesday, GDP Not Until Thursday
The official GDP release by the BEA is Thursday. But the Fed interest rate decision is tomorrow.
CME Fedwatch posts a 30.5 percent chance of a hike tomorrow, with a 76.6 percent chance of a hike in September. There is no August meeting.
I doubt the Fed hikes tomorrow. I suspect the odds are more like 15 percent than 30 percent.
Although Fed Chair Kevin Warsh will try hard to not make any forecasts, his press conference statements will set a tone.
Trump and Scotty Basement and Howie the Duck were going to trounce Biden’s GDP numbers. What total jokes. The FED is going to lower interest rates to save the blowhards.
And the debt to gdp ratio keeps climbing.
Its around 122%, same as it was 5 years ago.
It was 102% in January 2014 and 105% just before COVID pandemic started.
It broke 100% in 2012 right after the November election, and was 80% a few months after Obama’s first inauguration.
Because of the abject incompetence of George W. Bush Jr. But, whatever.
SK Hynix and Samsung getting absolutely COOKED this morning.
Kospi from early 2025 went nearly 4x, then divided by 2, now it’s still a double from 14 or so months ago! Nuts. Just drew my fibs for the SOXX retracement. SMH can fall another 12-16% to hit the 50% retracement from early 2025 low. Simple mean reversion, really. But breathtaking!
Real GDP growth by state: First quarter 2026
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2026/07/real-gdp-growth-by-state-first-quarter-2026/
This quarter includes two wars which are hugely expensive, and the bill goes to the credit card.
They are also inflationary, requiring top quality components.
Overlaid over government military spending, the adjusted GDP would decline.
meanwhile Money maybe useless by 2036 – Elon Musk
https://dailytrust.com/money-maybe-useless-by-2036-elon-musk/
Possibly, but Elon Musk is useless right now.
worse than useless I’d say he is a net negative feature to the life of everyday Americans and getting worse
What an asinine comment from Musk. Money is a medium of exchange. It provides a significant improvement over bartering. Even if AI provides an abundance of goods and services, we’re still going to need something to serve as a medium of exchange.
And let’s not assume that any abundance from AI will cause prices to fall to where we don’t need money. The people that control national money supplies would never give up the control they have. And they will never give up the ability to steal our labor, and therefore tiny portions of our lives (which is effectively partial murder), by stealing our purchasing power through inflation.
Musk is an interesting figure. Part visionary, daring entrepreneur, weird, 100% huckster.
But his timeframes are Billy wrong. I drank the kool-aid on self-driving cars and I am still waiting.
Are these annualized rates?
Reserve balances with Federal Reserve Banks are still down since last July.
1.5% my ass. The dollar is compound devalued so much that even if inflation was 0% things are still 50% higher than they should be. Just because the rate of change is diminishing, the nominal is high. These people are so cheap they thought they could split the atom.
They’ll hold, the Fed will be mysterious, which matches their cluelessness in general. We need a hike but that means we won’t get one. Don’t just do something, stand there!
I mean with a criminal dunce like Trump at the helm, what can the Fed really do in practice? Hard to stop Nero from playing with matches as a lowly accountant.