US GDP : best perform since mid 2014

Consumer spending propelled U.S. economic growth to a 4.1% pace in the second quarter, the fastest since 2014, letting President Donald Trump claim a win for his policies even though most analysts see the high as temporary.

The annualized rate of gains in gross domestic product was just shy of the 4.2% median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. It followed first-quarter growth of 2.2% that was revised from 2%, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Consumer spending grew 4 percent, more than estimated, while nonresidential business investment climbed at a 7.3% clip.

The number matched expectations from economists surveyed by Reuters and was boosted by a surge in consumer spending and business investment. Stock market futures edged lower on the news while government bond yields moved lower.

That’s the fastest rate of the growth since the 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2014 and the third-best growth rate since the Great Recession. In addition to the strong second quarter, the Commerce Department revised its first-quarter reading up from 2 percent to 2.2 percent.

Nevertheless, the scorecard gives Trump a chance to highlight the success of his policies, including the biggest tax overhaul since the Reagan era, which probably boosted consumer spending and business investment. Yet the risks from tariff wars and a fading effect from tax cuts are among reasons analysts see difficulty keeping the economy growing at such a robust pace.

Even so, Federal Reserve policy makers are expected to continue their gradual pace of interest-rate hikes aimed at keeping the economy from overheating, without moving so fast that they could choke off growth.

“I wouldn’t want to overstate the underlying strength in GDP growth based on Friday’s numbers,” Omair Sharif, senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale, said before the report. “There was a big boost from trade, but that’ll go away.” Going forward, “it’s highly unlikely we’ll get 4 percent growth, or even 3 percent on a sustained basis.”

In recent days, White House officials had been indicating the reading will be strong.

President Donald Trump himself tweeted a few days ago that the U.S. has the “best financial numbers on the planet,” while National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow predicted on Thursday that Q2 GDP will be “big.”

The administration has used a mix of tax cuts, deregulation and spending increases to goose growth. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told CNBC earlier this week that deregulation likely has had the most impact so far as companies feel more comfortable about committing capital.

The next question will be whether the growth spurt is sustainable. There were several jumps in GDP under former President Barack Obama. That Q3 increase in 2014 was preceded by a 5.1 percent rise in the second quarter. But by the end of 2015, growth had slowed to 0.4 percent. Federal Reserve officials forecast GDP to rise 2.8 percent for all of 2018 but then to tail off to 2.4 percent in 2019 and 2 percent in 2020.

Economists generally expect the trade war between the U.S. and China to temper further growth. Trump has slapped 25 percent duties on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports and has threatened $200 billion more. The administration also has put tariffs on steel and aluminum.

However, more recently the administration said it has made progress on trade agreements with the European Union.

In a recent forecast, Goldman Sachs said the effects from trade disputes are “typically modest,” shaving about 0.2 percent from output.