Announcer:
It’s now time for 4 Your Money. We’re joined by David Nelson, CEO of NelsonCorp Wealth Management. Welcome back, David.
David Nelson:
Thank you for the invite.
Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
So, David, we’ve seen some positive changes to economic growth figures recently. What insights do you have from the latest data?
David Nelson:
Well, we did see the GDP growth rate that was revised higher last quarter. But as we tell people all the time, the problem with a lot of these statistics are they look in the rearview mirror instead of looking forward. So I brought a chart today that actually is much more current. It looks at weekly data, and it’s a tool that gives us real-time read of what the economy is doing. It’s called the Weekly Economic Index. It combines a lot of real-time data points into one indicator that tells us how the economy is performing on a weekly basis, and it expresses that as a year-over-year growth rate, it tends to fall rather quickly as far as when things start turning down. So we get a more timely read. This happened in 2008 during the great financial crisis. You can see that as far as on the chart there, and then again in 2020 with COVID. But what’s kind of interesting is, the last year and a half, this series of indicators kind of indicate higher levels, which is certainly what we want to see.
Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
So what does this mean for investors?
David Nelson:
Well, I think knowing that the Federal Reserve is looking very seriously at cutting interest rates here in September, it’s really important to pay attention to these type of things, and we’ll see as far as how it unfolds. But I guess I’d wrap it up just saying that caution is probably warranted at this point. Again, these things could go either direction. Just assume that people protect capital versus being overly aggressive.
Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
All right, David. As always, thanks for your insight today.
David Nelson:
Thank you.
Brandy Auterson-Hurst:
If you missed any of our discussion, we’ll make it available for you on OurQuadCities.com.
Investing involves risk. Depending on the types of investments, there may be varying degrees of risk. Investors should be prepared to bear loss, including total loss of principal.
Indices mentioned are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly.
This video includes a paid appearance.