Nominal consumption spending surprises on the upside. Here’s a picture of the series the NBER BCDC follows, along with the monthly GDP.

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, NFP (dark blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), 2023Q2 is GDPNow of 7/18, all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA 2023Q2 advance release via FRED, S&P Global/IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (7/3/2023 release), and author’s calculations.

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