Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Here's the latest US
Speaker 1: data blind spots weighing on economic forecasts in the new year.
Speaker 1: Data Peterson of the Conference Board, writing twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: is ending on a confusing note for markets, economists, and
Speaker 1: central bankers alike. So we should not completely ignore the
Speaker 1: data data joins us now, Happy New York. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being with US data. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the data that we have gotten. Why is it so noisy?
Speaker 1: How should people look at it? Considering that people do
Speaker 1: view it as somewhat noisy, but also they can't ignore.
Speaker 2: It exactly, you can't ignore these data. We did have
Speaker 2: data for the third quarter. Certainly, the GDP came in
Speaker 2: a lot stronger than expected, and certainly consumption was a
Speaker 2: lot stronger. Even though we did have data, it shows
Speaker 2: that the Fed, I mean the Federal Reserve. Sorry, it
Speaker 2: shows that the federal government probably had more data in
Speaker 2: between releases and certainly after the shutdown. But I think
Speaker 2: the key thing is that inventories and trade we're very confusing.
Speaker 2: And indeed, when you add up the inventories, well, when
Speaker 2: you add up the imports plus the consumption, the inventory's
Speaker 2: numbers just don't make sense. So we really need to
Speaker 2: get data next week on inventories as well as international trade,
Speaker 2: business sentiment, and also employment. I think we really need
Speaker 2: to see more data to get a handle on what
Speaker 2: happened in the third quarter and also what happened in
Speaker 2: the fourth quarter data.
Speaker 1: We are going to get some data come next week
Speaker 1: that is going to be important, including the non farm
Speaker 1: pails as well as some of the manufacturing aspects that
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Nonetheless, we have a host of other
Speaker 1: information out there that people keep pointing to. Whether it's ADP,
Speaker 1: whether it's earnings, whether it's the ruttoric coming out of
Speaker 1: a lot of companies, or whether it's retail sales. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there some sort of conclusion that you can take
Speaker 1: even amid the noise.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, certainly the stock market does
Speaker 2: not really like the real economy, so we can't look
Speaker 2: to that, and also people who most people don't own stocks,
Speaker 2: so they're not really benefiting from that. We do have
Speaker 2: lots of sentiment data. Of course, our consumer sentiment data
Speaker 2: has shown that consumers are less sanguine about the current
Speaker 2: conditions as well as having some concerns about the future,
Speaker 2: you know, retail sales at all we have really is
Speaker 2: the end of the third quarter, and they were weaker.
Speaker 2: So I think that we just need more information, and
Speaker 2: you can't look at these things and try to estimate
Speaker 2: what the government data is going to tell us.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index and
Speaker 3: it hasn't been this low since the pandemic. So what
Speaker 3: does that tell us about, you know, inflation, growth, spending.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the inflation did has yet to hit us. Remember,
Speaker 2: the tariffs that were implemented were delayed twice, and also
Speaker 2: they were raised and lowered several times, so many businesses
Speaker 2: are still waiting to see if there's any certainty with
Speaker 2: respect to tariffs. Yes, we've had a number of deals established,
Speaker 2: but there's still a lot that's unknown. And so with
Speaker 2: businesses uncertain, it doesn't mean that it just means that
Speaker 2: we're not going to see much hiring. We're not seeing layoffs,
Speaker 2: which is good. Most people still are working, but those
Speaker 2: who do get laid off are finding it very difficult
Speaker 2: to find jobs. And even though most consumers are working
Speaker 2: and they actually are spending, the type of spending that
Speaker 2: they're engaged with is very different they're buying things that
Speaker 2: they need, and when it comes to especially with goods
Speaker 2: and services, and when it does come to things that
Speaker 2: are entertaining, they're buying cheap things, right, cheap thrills like
Speaker 2: streaming instead of going to the movies and paying you know,
Speaker 2: over our dollars for a family of four. And so
Speaker 2: I think we need to really get beyond the first
Speaker 2: quarter of this year to really see what's happening, because
Speaker 2: I think that's when we're going to see the bigger
Speaker 2: effects of tariffs on inflation and consumers really pull back.
Speaker 3: Dan, I've been trying to pin down how workers' wages
Speaker 3: have kept up with inflation, as I've been saying. You know,
Speaker 3: Torsten Slock put out a six year average showing that
Speaker 3: wages are doing better than inflation. But Mark Chandler, whom
Speaker 3: we just spoke with from Vandenbrooks, says in his household
Speaker 3: that certainly isn't the case, and he doesn't think that
Speaker 3: it looks like a great picture for consumers. How do
Speaker 3: you see it?
Speaker 2: Well, yes, wage growth and compensation have been slowing from
Speaker 2: the peaks that we saw during the pandemic. Certainly the
Speaker 2: later portion of the pandemic when we were trying to
Speaker 2: get everybody back into the labor market, and you need
Speaker 2: to entice them and also keep workers with compensation. But still,
Speaker 2: I mean, I would say that wages are still growing
Speaker 2: at a pace that's above where we were between the
Speaker 2: Great Financial Crisis and the pandemic. But I would look
Speaker 2: at the last GDP data where we saw real disposable
Speaker 2: income grow at zero points zero percentage points annualized in
Speaker 2: the third quarter. That's not a good sign. And so
Speaker 2: we definitely do see slowing in wages, and for some
Speaker 2: people it may be faster than others.
Speaker 1: Dana Peterson of the Conference Board, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being with us this morning on the first trading
Speaker 1: day of the new year.