Yet Franz acknowledged a disconnect between hard data and business sentiment. Survey indicators, such as corporate capex intentions, have been weakening. “When you ask people, are you going to spend on capex, they’ll say no. Much more negative than they were just three months ago,” he notes.
Despite widespread investor unease and conflicting data points, Capital Group economist Jared Franz believes the US economy remains on solid footing, at least for now. However, structural challenges and inflationary pressures are starting to emerge, prompting the asset manager to shift portfolio strategies towards undervalued global opportunities.
“If I showed you charts of the US economy now — OpenTable reservations, high-frequency job openings, retail sales data — you’d probably say the economy’s doing pretty good,” says Franz. He pointed to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker, which currently forecasts 3.8% growth for Q2. “That’s really good for the US,” he adds.
