Personal income growth at +0.8% m/m vs +0.4% Bloomberg consensus, while consumption growth is +0.4% m/m vs 0.5% consensus. GDPNow adjusted for gold imports now at -0.5% q/q annualized. Michigan final expectations for March down 52.6 vs 54.2 consensus.
From Steve Kamin, two pieces: [1] [2]. A succinct summary:
So all told, Miran’s suggested options to lower the dollar while containing interest rates would be ineffectual, destabilizing, and ultimately for no good purpose. In his conclusion, he acknowledges some of these risks, but argues that because of Trump’s focus on financial markets, “I therefore expect that policy will proceed in a gradual way that attempts to minimize any unwanted market consequences…” Well, if the past few weeks of trade policy are any indication, be afraid . . . be very afraid!
Third release on GDP. We now have a reading on GDO, as well as an updated view on GDP+.
From Atlanta Fed today:
Conference Board confidence index at 92.9 vs. 94.2 consensus. Here’s confidence vs. U.Mich sentiment (all standardized).
As attributed to Paul Samuelson. So, with trepidation, I show the SP500 and CAPE over the last half decade:
EJ Antoni concludes we’re in a recession, and elsewhere, have been since 2022. On the other hand, he argues (rightly) that we shouldn’t take a face value GDPNow’s reading for Q1.
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version, was published by Project Syndicate.
The March FT-Booth survey is out; median q4/q4 growth for 2025 is 1.6%, down from 2.3% in the December survey (see this post for comparison to FOMC SEP, the median entry is 1.7%). The average 90th/10th bounds are also interesting, in that large downside risks are perceived.