Today's data helped to boost the growth estimate
Today's retail sales data showed that the consumer is still the engine of the US economy. The bump would have been even higher if not for poor inventories (which are likely to be temporary).
An increase in the nowcast of third-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth from 2.7 percent to 3.4 percent after this morning's retail sales release from the U.S. Census Bureau was partly offset by a decline in the nowcast of third-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth from 0.5 percent to -0.5 percent after the retail sales and inventories releases from the Census Bureau and the industrial production report from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
