Walmart (WMT) Stock Outlook.

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The US economy is strong as we begin 2025 and Trump’s second presidency. We expect to see Q4 GDP rise by 2.8% and 2024 GDP grow by approximately 2.6%. At the beginning of 2024, we forecast 1.7% growth for the year. We expected personal consumption expenditures to average about 1.2%. The final tally could be 3%. The labor market cooled but did not freeze, and the Fed’s apparent plans to cut short-term interest rates led to a beneficial decline in long-term interest rates over the summer. While many consumers are still struggling with inflation, wealthier households are spending, boosted by a 2.4% unemployment rate among college graduates, a lower mortgage rate, and gains in their stock portfolios. Our optimism was tempered by the jump in the 10-year Treasury interest rate to 4.8% from 3.65% in September. Our 2025 forecast for US GDP growth is 2.1%. The average estimate from Fed officials is also 2.1%. Our quarterly GDP estimates for 2025 are 1.7%, 1.8%, 2.3%, and 2.6%. Four indicators driven by a wide range of timely data support our assessment that the economy is healthy and growing. On January 9, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta was forecasting fourth-quarter GDP growth of 2.7%. On January 10, New York Fed staff, in their fourth-quarter outlook, called for growth of 2.36%. The weekly economic index tracked by the Dallas Fed is based on 10 daily and weekly indicators of consumer behavior, labor market and production. If, for example, in