It’s early in the quarter but the trend is unmistakable as the Atlanta Fed tracker continues to point to strong growth in Q3. In the latest update, the GDPNow measure was boosted to 5.8% from 5.0%.
“After this morning’s housing starts report from the US Census Bureau and industrial production report from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the nowcasts of third-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and third-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth increased from 4.4 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively, to 4.8 percent and 11.4 percent,” the release said.
The Fed probably won’t hike in September but if we get growth anywhere north of 4% in Q3, I’d expect a November hike. The case for a US dollar breakout also continues to build as evidence mounts of slowdowns elsewhere.