In July 2024, U.S. consumer spending exceeded expectations, and inflation pressures continued to ease, as reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday 15th August 2024.
Retail sales in the U.S. rose by 1% for the month, with advanced figures adjusted for seasonality but not for inflation. This surpassed the 0.3% increase anticipated. The initially flat reported sales for June 2024 were revised to a 0.2% decrease.
Removing auto-related items, sales saw a 0.4% rise, which was substantially more favourable than the predicted 0.1%.
The number of weekly jobless claims fell to 227,000, a drop of 7,000 from the preceding week, and was below the forecasted 235,000.
Markets have responded positively to all this good news, and together with other favourable developments, it appears increasingly likely that the Federal Reserve will have no reason other than to cut rates in September 2024.