Following up on Jim’s post on the GDP release yesterday, looking at different aspects of economic activity:

Quarterly Indicators

First, ignoring the self-congratulatory remarks of CEA47, consider the level of GDP relative to the 2024H2 trend:

Figure 1: GDP fm Q2 advance (bold black), GDPNow of 7/29 (light blue square), Bloomberg consensus as of 7/29 (red triangle), linear extrapolation using 2024H2 growth rate. Source: BEA, Atlanta Fed, Bloomberg, and author’s calculations.

While the CEA might be buoyed by the 3% which exceeded consensus, it’s clear that 3% did not put GDP on its pre-Trump trajectory. Interestingly, on the day before the release, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow was essentially on target at 2.9% vs actual 3.0% y/y annualized (4 days before release, it was at then-consensus of 2.4%).

Given the distortions in GDP associated with tariff frontloading, I think these are times when it’s particularly useful to use final sales