Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / We Finally Got GOOD Economic News! | S2 E025 | 03-27-25

Transcript

We Finally Got GOOD Economic News! | S2 E025 | 03-27-25 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: We got a good piece of economic data today in what's been a string of disappointing news for the US economy.
• 0:06
  Megan Horneman: It's Thursday, march 27th, and this is Markets with Megan.
• 0:09
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• 0:11
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• 0:15
  Megan Horneman: What we want to talk today about is the final reading, or the third reading, on the fourth quarter GDP.
• 0:20
  Megan Horneman: Now, typically this report doesn't get a lot of news because by this time adjustments are small, and we did see some small adjustments.
• 0:27
  Megan Horneman: But there's a couple of things underlying that we want to focus.
• 0:30
  Megan Horneman: So let's dig right in.
• 0:31
  Megan Horneman: First of all, gdp came in a tenth higher than what was previously reported.
• 0:36
  Megan Horneman: It came in at 2.4% versus 2.3% in the last reading.
• 0:40
  Megan Horneman: The personal consumption was a bit weaker, so that was 4.2%.
• 0:46
  Megan Horneman: It was revised down to 4%.
• 0:48
  Megan Horneman: Now the core PCE this is good news for the Fed.
• 0:52
  Megan Horneman: It was reported at 2.7%.
• 0:55
  Megan Horneman: It actually was downgraded to 2.6%.
• 0:58
  Megan Horneman: Let's dig into the underlying details of this.
• 1:01
  Megan Horneman: So, as mentioned, personal consumption was revised lower.
• 1:05
  Megan Horneman: We saw increases in the revisions in fixed investments, specifically equipment.
• 1:11
  Megan Horneman: We saw a better reading on net exports.
• 1:14
  Megan Horneman: We saw a better reading on government consumption, primarily in the defense side.
• 1:19
  Megan Horneman: So this all helped with bringing that GDP up by a tenth.
• 1:23
  Megan Horneman: Now, the one thing that is a big focus in this report is the corporate profits.
• 1:27
  Megan Horneman: So we saw corporate profits corporate profits jump the highest the most since we've seen since 2022.
• 1:34
  Megan Horneman: So this is something that that there's going to be of a focus as we get into this tariff war.
• 1:40
  Megan Horneman: The markets are lower today and this is primarily because of the news out of the White House to raise auto tariffs by 25%.
• 1:48
  Megan Horneman: But can companies now absorb some of this?
• 1:51
  Megan Horneman: Because we're seeing corporate profits so high, can they not pass that on to consumers?
• 1:57
  Megan Horneman: That's going to be seen and we'll get a lot more information out of earnings season, which is set to kick off on April 7th.
• 2:03
  Megan Horneman: That's all we have today.
• 2:05
  Megan Horneman: We'll be back tomorrow because we will get that core PCE reading.
• 2:09
  Megan Horneman: That is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge Right now.
• 2:13
  Megan Horneman: It's expected to rise on a year-over-year basis to 2.7%, so going in the opposite direction.
• 2:18
  Megan Horneman: But we'll be back tomorrow to give you some more details there, and we'll always be back with another impact report as we get information out of the White House.
• 2:26
  Megan Horneman: If you would like to see a further history of our podcast, you can go to marketswithmeganfm.
• 2:30
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.