Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Recession Ahead? 4Q GDP Revealed | S2E007 | 01-30-25

Transcript

Recession Ahead? 4Q GDP Revealed | S2E007 | 01-30-25 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: We got a first look at what the final quarter of 2024 looked like from an economic perspective.
• 0:05
  Megan Horneman: It's Thursday, january the 30th, and this morning we got the first reading on quarterly GDP.
• 0:11
  Megan Horneman: We'll get a couple more readings as well, but the first reading showed that GDP came in a little bit weaker than expected.
• 0:18
  Megan Horneman: It came in at 2.3% in the final quarter of 2024.
• 0:22
  Megan Horneman: It was expected to come in at 2.6%.
• 0:25
  Megan Horneman: Let's just dig into some of these details.
• 0:28
  Megan Horneman: The biggest driving force behind this was the 4.2% increase we saw in personal consumption in the fourth quarter.
• 0:36
  Megan Horneman: This blew away a lot of expectations.
• 0:38
  Megan Horneman: When you look at what the median forecast was from economists for this reading, it was they would grow 3.2%.
• 0:45
  Megan Horneman: There was a pretty big increase in spending on auto sales for the fourth quarter, so that's what really drove the personal consumption number.
• 0:53
  Megan Horneman: Some areas of weakness reflected from the Boeing strike.
• 0:57
  Megan Horneman: So that should reverse course, and that was in equipment spending.
• 1:00
  Megan Horneman: And then we also saw inventory start to get trimmed, and that's normal.
• 1:04
  Megan Horneman: If companies are expecting growth to slow down, they'll start.
• 1:05
  Megan Horneman: We also saw inventories start to get trimmed, and that's normal.
• 1:06
  Megan Horneman: If companies are expecting growth to slow down, they'll start to trim their inventories and not replenish them at the same speed.
• 1:11
  Megan Horneman: That's also one that can give back in the future quarter.
• 1:15
  Megan Horneman: As we said, we'll get a couple more readings on this GDP, but it shows the consumer was very strong to end out the final quarter of the year.
• 1:23
  Megan Horneman: Now'll be back with next week with a bunch of other economic indicators that can be pretty market moving.
• 1:30
  Megan Horneman: It's the first week of every month and the first week of every month we get indicators like ISM, we get durable goods, we'll get the JOLTS report and we'll finish the week out with the employment report.
• 1:41
  Megan Horneman: But this is on top of also earning season, really in full swing here.
• 1:44
  Megan Horneman: So we're expecting a pretty volatile week next week for the equity markets.
• 1:48
  Megan Horneman: That's all we have today.
• 1:49
  Megan Horneman: If you like this podcast, please hit, subscribe, hit that alarm bell, share it with your friends or colleagues and, as always, if you want to see any of our other podcasts, you can go to marketswithmeganfm.
• 2:00
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.