Weekly Market Commentary 4/29/2019

The U.S. economy increasingly resembles Wile E. Coyote, the Looney Tunes character who briefly stays aloft after running off a cliff. Of course, the Coyote abruptly descends into a cloud of dust when he realizes the floor below has vanished. A similar fate may occur in the real world of GDP statistics, which this morning tracked an economy that was propped up by thin air in the first quarter. On Friday, the Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product increased by a 3.2 percent annual rate during the period, blowing through virtually all expectations but greatly exaggerating the economy’s underlying strength.