Positive Economic News Keeps Coming As Consumer Spending Beats Expectations

Some economic indicators that were previously trending in the direction of a recession have backed off.

Consumer spending in July was up 1%, beating expectations of economists' surveyed by Dow Jones that it would rise just 0.3%, according to CNBC. If auto-related items were taken out, sales increased 0.4%, also above expectations of 0.1%.

"This was another solid report, and inconsistent with a consumer who is on the brink of collapse," William Blair Macro Analyst Richard de Chazal wrote, according to CNBC.

Other positive economic indicators also emerged this week. Initial jobless claims dropped, with 227,000 claims filed in the week ending Aug. 10. That was a decline from 234,000 the week prior and also below the 235,000 claims economists were anticipating, Yahoo Finance reported.

"All of a sudden, things have come together," BMO Wealth Management U.S. Chief Investment Officer Yung-Yu Ma told Yahoo Finance.

"And what seems like almost a Goldilocks scenario for the data is a tremendous shift from what we had a week or so ago when we had the market sell-off," Ma said. 

"We think the soft landing is firmly in place," he said.

The news comes on the heels of figures indicating that the prices shoppers pay for goods and services also cooled last month. The consumer price index increased 0.2% month over month while yearly the index declined to 2.9%, its lowest yearly growth rate since March 2021, according to the White House. 

The financial markets are expecting all this news to translate into a rate cut from the Federal Reserve in September, although "a resilient consumer could give policymakers more reason to take a measured approach to cuts," Yahoo Finance reported. Any rate cut would be the first in more than four years.