Over the last several months, it has been a story of high inflation, low consumer confidence and rising interest rates .

JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon continues to caution that a recession is on its way.

Today the news was more upbeat with the US Commerce Department reporting that US GDP, adjusted for inflation, grew to 2.6 per cent annualised.

This is the first increase following successive negative quarters and is ahead of forecasters and analysts expectations.

President Joe Biden welcomed the good news, proclaiming: “For months, doomsayers have been arguing that the US economy is in recession and congressional Republicans have been rooting for a downturn. But today we got further evidence that our economic recovery is continuing to power forward.”

Consumer spending rose by 0.4 per cent in the third quarter (July to September).

“Real GDP increased in the third quarter, but I don’t expect this growth to continue later this year or early next.

“Much of the growth in Q3 GDP was driven by an increase in exports reflecting the global reopening that occurred this past summer but weak global demand combined with a relatively strong U.S. dollar are likely to significantly limit export growth,” said John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult, earlier today.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times this year and may very well do so again next week.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is still forecasting higher unemployment.

Earlier this week, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced that it would be reducing the number of people hired.

Though the US economy grew for the first time in six months, the outlook for the coming year still looks bleak.

“The irony is we’re seeing the strongest growth of the year when things are actually slowing. There are some real cracks in the foundation. Housing is contracting. The consumer is slowing. GDP is growing but not for all of the right reasons,” said Chief Economist at KPMG, Diane Swonk.