'Core' GDP is the signal among all the noise

April 29, 2025, Opinion: "The US trade war is creating substantial turbulence in the global economy. It is creating even more turbulence in the statistics used to track the global economy. When reading economic data, extracting the signal from the noise is essential. Doing so is even more critical now as the impact of tariff changes take effect. This week the US GDP statistics are going to be released and the headline is likely to be very weak. You should ignore it, as I always do, and focus instead on what could be called “core” GDP — the figures that reflect consumer spending and private investment."