Two pieces of economic data came out on Thursday. For one, the economy grew faster than expected: 3.4% annual rate in the third quarter. But prices grew too — by 3.6%. And those higher prices could start to take a bit of steam of that growth soon.
Still, 3.4% growth is pretty good.
“I think the big takeaway is the U.S. economy had a pretty strong summer overall,” said Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Financial Group.
Of course, a lot of that growth was due to AI development. “That’s certainly a big part of the story,” Porter said. “There’s no two ways about it.”
But AI wasn’t the sole cause.
“Consumer spending was relatively robust as well,” Porter said. “Even with the
energy price shock, the consumer has — as a whole — held in there and managed to grow a little bit faster than average.”
The way that consumers have managed to hang in there, though, is not quite as encouraging.
“If you look at the savings rate, it came down to 3.8% in September,” said Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at EY-Parthenon. “That’s down from about 5% a year ago.”
And actually, consumers did get tired when summer turned to fall. | 
