The Focus This Week: US Economic Heft
Investors will get an early look at how the world’s biggest economy is performing this year, with the US scheduled to release its first-quarter growth figures on Thursday. Economists are predicting, on average, that economic output rose at a modest annualized 2% rate from the three months before. But those forecasts could prove to be overly gloomy, just like they were last time around when the consensus expected 2% growth but the economy blasted higher by 3.4%.
There’s another reason why the US might shoot the lights out once again: consumer spending. It’s by far the biggest driver of the economy, and the country’s hot labor market has bolstered wages and encouraged Americans to keep on spending, despite higher borrowing costs and consumer prices. Case in point: data out last week showed retail sales jumped 0.7% in March from the month…
