Travel data largely following their historical patterns

Note: This is an abbreviated edition of the Economic Data Tracker. The next edition will be published on October 3rd

Trend watch

Air passenger traffic and hotel occupancy have largely held to the historical pattern. Both metrics stabilized in mid-September for the past few weeks. Weekly air passenger counts climbed to 17.4 million two weeks ago, roughly 1 million above the late August/early September low. But – also following the pattern – it fell 2.1% this past week to 17.0 million. It should stabilize again and gradually rise in mid-October, followed by a decline lasting several weeks until roughly a week before Thanksgiving, which falls on November 27^th this year.

Meanwhile, we updated the scheduled freight bookings from China to the United States with the latest data (through the first week of September). With bookings continuing to drift lower, the lower incoming freight volumes will ripple through the port, rail, trucking, and freight data in coming weeks and months, which we attribute to tariff-related distortions.

Bottom line

The U.S. economy remains in a muddle-through environment. We’re hopeful that the modest reacceleration in job growth during the past two months will persist, supported by certainty in tax policy and further clarity on the tariffs. We expect the Federal Reserve (Fed) to continue moving cautiously until there’s more evidence.