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On Friday, 2Q 2018 U.S. GDP accelerated 20 basis points to 2.8% year-over-year. This marked the 8th straight quarter growth, the longest streak in U.S. history.
(Note: The headline GDP number, popularly quoted by the mainstream media, was 4.1% quarter-over-quarter SAAR, a wonky and widely-divergent metric each quarter. We closely watch the year-over-year metric because it more accurately predicts future market returns.)
Here's the key takeway from Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough:
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"After the 8th consecutive (new record) year-over-year acceleration in U.S. GDP to 2.8% in 2Q 2018, some of your government guys are calling this “sustainable. Our preliminary headline now-casts for Q3 2018 is 2.34% and Q4 2018 is 1.68%, so it won’t appear to be sustainable if we are right. Growth, as a U.S. Style Factor, was down both relative and absolute last week too." |
In other words, the market has been pricing in a 2-year cycle high in US GDP growth, for … 2 years!
As you can see in the chart below, this is the longest streak of U.S. #GrowthAccelerating in history. U.S. GDP has now accelerated (on a year-over-year basis) for eight straight quarters. Remember, it's the slope of the line that matters in macro. This is not where you start to get bullish on growth.
