The Economy Is Doing Just Fine

Apollo Chief Economist

Looking at the latest daily and weekly data shows that retail sales are strong, jobless claims are falling, restaurant bookings are strong, air travel is strong, hotel occupancy rates are high, bank credit growth is accelerating, bankruptcy filings are trending lower, credit card spending is solid, and Broadway show attendance and box office grosses are strong. The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now estimate for third quarter GDP is 2.4%, and the Dallas Fed weekly GDP indicator is 2.3%. Finally, we added a new chart with state-level GDP for New York, California, and Texas, which also shows continued strength, see below. The bottom line is that there are no signs of a recession in the incoming data, see also our chart book with daily and weekly data available here.

Weekly economic indicators for New York, California, and Texas
Source: Baumeister, Christiane, Danilo Leiva-Leon, and Eric Sims (2024), “Tracking Weekly State-Level Economic Conditions,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 106(2), 483-504., Apollo Chief Economist. Note: The economic conditions indices are computed with mixed-frequency dynamic factor models with weekly, monthly, and quarterly variables that cover multiple dimensions of state economies. The indices are scaled to 4-quarter growth rates of US real GDP and normalized such that a value of zero indicates national long-run growth.

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