Surveillance: US Consumer Spending Stays Hot

Lara Rhame, FS Investments Chief US Economist, breaks down today's core PCE price index which showed that both inflation and consumer spending rose in September. Isaac Boltansky, BTIG Policy Research Director, predicts that the chaos in the House will lead to a shutdown later this year. Lisa Shalett, Morgan Stanley Chief Investment Officer of Wealth Management, says that we've entered within 50 basis points of a peak in rates. Poonam Goyal & Anurag Rana, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analysts, discuss a big week in Big Tech earnings. Chris Marinac, Janney Montgomery Scott Analyst, expects banks to set aside reserves to build confidence going into 2024. Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance FULL TRANSCRIPT: This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Lisa A. Bromoids, along with Tom Keen and Jonathan Ferrell. Join us each day for insight from the best in economics, geopolitics, finance and investment. Subscribe to Bloomberg Surveillance on demand on Apple, Spotify and anywhere you get your podcasts, and always on Bloomberg dot Com, the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business App. We're waiting for the PC data. We're joined by Mike Nicky Aron the Deak. So we're waiting for the personal spending, the deflator. Mike, will it be disinflationary? Roll of the dice, that's the question. We're waiting for the numbers to come down on the Bloomberg Terminal. Well, I got about four seconds until that happens. But the ideas we may get a little more disinflation. Let's find out from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and here come the numbers. And we'll start with the inflation numbers. They come in hotter than anticipated, up four tenths of a percent. I don't know month over a month basis. For the headline, the core comes in up a three tenths which is about what was expected, although there was some leaning towards maybe a little lower number year over year. Now we see the PCE headline number at three point four percent, that's down from three to five, and the core comes in at three seven, down from three to nine. Both of those expected. All the people who like to dive into all those numbers and figure out what actually changed will be with us in a few seconds. Personal income up three tenths. That's lower than the prior month of four tenths gain, but also lower than what was anticipated a four tenths gain. Spending up seven tenths, I mean not strong. On the back of that, on the back of that GDP and the connginut well, this number is in the GDP because this is a September number. It was the third month of the quarter, so he kind of sort of backed out the numbers and anticipated that this would be fairly strong. We were up four tenths the prior month. The question is now do we continue to see that spending happen, Because if incomes are falling behind and they have been the spending levels over the last couple of months, that would suggest that maybe there's a pullback ahead. Now I'm not the expert here. There's one more there is, indeed, La Rain chief economists out with us this morning. First take, I think that we continue to see inflation coming down, but it's still uncomfortably It's still unacceptably high from the point of view of the Fed, and I think the conversation as we go into next year continues to the options for the Fed continue to narrow because if inflation stays about where it is and it's going to take a long time for it to get closer to too, their room to maneuver should the economy slow at all, is going to be very narrow. And look by these numbers, it looks like the economy is just still incredibly strong. We know that from the GDP numbers that we already got, but I mean the spending has just by the households that has defied every expectation of it to slow, and it's accelerated so much in the third quarter. That's what's extraordinary. I think savings rate comes in a three point four percent. People have been watching that for some indication of whether or not they're going to run out of money in the American consumer. It's down from four percent and it's been a steady decline. But historically, before the pandemic, we used to say people spend what they make. They don't dip into savings the way people tend to think they do. And so if that's the case, then there's more of a case now for maybe a slow down. People don't have as much to dip into if they wanted to, but they're also not making as much as they were. Well, I had johnat Henry with me this morning from HSBC and she said, actually Americans are more likely to dip into their savings and spend, spend, spend right to the very end. But I want to bring you an idea from UBS, which is Paul Donovan, where he said, you know, when we go to write the history of twenty twenties, do not bet against the headonism of the US consumer. It's very rich. I love it. I mean, there's a there's a brilliant wine place in London called Hedonism Wines. Whole o