Brian Bethune News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

U.S. economic growth likely slowed to a still-solid pace in the first quarter while inflation accelerated, reinforcing financial market expectations that the Federal Reserve would delay cutting interest rates until September. The Commerce Department's snapshot of first-quarter gross domestic product on Thursday is expected to show consumers still doing the heavy lifting for the economy, thanks to a resilient labor market. The economy has defied prophecies of doom since late 2022 following the U.S. central bank's aggressive rate hiking campaign to snuff out inflation.

Expensive home prices and rents complicate the outlook for the economy and President Biden’s reelection campaign.

U.S. job growth likely slowed marginally in January as a resilient economy and strong worker productivity encouraged most businesses to retain their employees, a trend that could see the economic expansion sustained this year. The closely watched employment report from the Labor Department on Friday could further diminish financial market expectations of an interest rate cut in March, with annual wage growth forecast to have maintained its solid pace last month. The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday.

The U.S. economy likely grew at its slowest pace in 1-1/2 years in the fourth quarter as businesses throttled back on inventory investment and consumer spending cooled a bit, but the pace was probably enough to have kept a recession at bay in 2023. The Commerce Department's advance fourth-quarter gross domestic product report on Thursday, which is also expected to show inflation moderating last quarter, will reinforce expectations that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates some time in the first half of this year. "We are expecting growth to come in right in the swe...

The U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the fourth quarter amid strong consumer spending and shrugged off dire predictions of a recession after the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates, with growth for the full year coming in at 2.5%.