Disappointing Economic News

The Federal Reserve gets together again tomorrow. I doubt we’ll see any moves on the interest rates front, but we may get some hints of things to come. The futures market appears to be leaning towards a December rate hike. I don’t think that’s a good idea.

We’re not near a recession, but the economy is hardly sprinting either. On Friday, we got some disappointing economic news. The Fed said that industrial production fell 0.9% in August. Hurricane Harvey was responsible for an estimated 0.75% of that. Also, retail sales dropped 0.4% last month. Excluding gasoline, retail sales were down 0.2% in August.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDP model now sees Q3 coming in at 2.2%. The New York Fed’s model is down to 1.3%. Harvey bears some of the blame, but not all.

Posted by on September 18th, 2017 at 10:50 am


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