Consumer spending growth has generally been trending at about 2.5-to-3 percent at an annual rate -- not booming, but not terrible, ... The fact that the job market is still weak is restraining optimism a bit; hopefully, as the recovery gathers pace, we will start to see more job growth.

291

I wouldn't take the numbers literally, but they're clearly signaling an improvement.

199

It was weaker than expected, but it wasn't a dramatic surprise. It was already pretty clear that sentiment came off in January.

172

The clear message seems to be that while oil is a drag, it's not a downward driver of consumer spending, ... The labor market is generating good income in general and the housing market continues to deliver a positive wealth effect. These factors are helping to offset the impact of higher oil prices.

150

It shows that underlying inflation is still tame and only slowly edging up. That means the Fed can take its time hiking rates. The only question is whether it keeps moving at every meeting or takes a break now and then.

147

Certainly, the degree of strength through August is not sustainable; we'll get a much weaker number in September. But the third quarter as a whole will still show 5 to 6 percent consumer spending growth, even if we get a negative number in September.

140

People have seen weakening in goods prices and have been pointing to deflation. This tells us we're not going there.

134

Household spending is staying pretty resilient.

127

In the whole post-war rebound story, the first part has come through -- we've clearly seen a bounce in consumer confidence. The next key step is business activity measures improving, including employment indicators. Hopefully we will see weekly jobless claims coming down soon -- in the next three-to-four weeks.

106