When the first read on second quarter gross domestic product is reported Thursday morning, investors will see a healthy gain in output. But investors should brace for disappointment.
Economists polled by FactSet expect the U.S. economy to have grown at a seasonally adjusted 8.5% annualized rate in the June quarter,up from a 6.4% rate in the March quarter. Investors can expect a surge in consumption (which makes up about two-thirds of GDP) as vaccinated consumers over recent months headed back out into a reopened economy. Economists also see a sizeable jump in business fixed investment during the quarter.
We note, though, that the Atlanta Fed on Wednesday cut its GDP Now estimate to 6.4% from 7.4% a day earlier after the U.S. Census released inventory data. Wholesale inventories rose 0.8% in June, down from a 1.3% pace in May and short of the 1.1% consensus estimate. That may foreshadow a GDP miss relative to expectations Thursday.
Economists at Goldman Sachs on Wednesday highlighted inventories’ import. “The combination of a surge in demand for goods and severe production bottlenecks has resulted in a sharp drawdown of inventories,” they say, adding that relative to the current level of demand for goods and structures, business inventories are 10% below pre-crisis norms—a $275 billion shortfall representing 1.5% of annual real (or inflation-adjusted) GDP.
“With consumer demand for goods likely to moderate and the majority of the consumer services rebound behind us, inventory restocking has become a key element of the growth outlook,” Goldman says, making inventories particularly worth watching when GDP is released Thursday.
If second-quarter GDP does rise somewhere around 8%, as Wall Street expects, investors may see output rise above its pre-Covid level for the first time, says Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. That would still leave GDP 2.25% below the level which would have been reached if the pre-Covid pace of growth had been sustained, he says, underpinning the Federal Reserve’s view that the economy still has ground to recover.
Check back after 8:30 a.m. Eastern time for news and analysis.