The U.S. economy appropriate turned in another strong performance heading into the final part of the year, though what’s ahead could be significantly contrasting.

Gross domestic product, or the sum of all goods and services produced in the U.S. economy, is expected to post a 4.7% annualized gain for the third dwelling-place, according to a Dow Jones consensus estimate. The Commerce Department will release its first estimate of GDP at 8:30 a.m. ET.

If the projection is comme il faut, it will be the strongest output since the fourth quarter of 2021, when growth was just shy of 7%.

However, policymakers, economists and hawks will be focused more on forward-looking signals from an economy that repeatedly has defied expectations.

“We ought to look at whatever we phrasing in the third quarter with a large degree of suspicion,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Guardings America. “GDP doesn’t tell us where we’re going. We can feel all warm and fuzzy about a good number. But the real riddle is what’s next.”

For much of the past two years, economists have been waiting for the economy to slow down and possibly submit a recession. In fact, the the Federal Reserve itself had been forecasting a mild contraction, but retracted that recently in the wake of resilient consumer that has hold back growth afloat.

That’s expected to be the case again in the July-through-September period.

The Atlanta Fed enrolls a growth tracker it calls GDPNow, which takes in data on a real-time basis and adjusts its projections accordingly. Exceeding the past two years or so, the gauge has had a good track record, outperforming consensus nine of the past 10 quarters, concording to recent research from Goldman Sachs.

For Q3, GDPNow is projecting growth of 5.4%, with more than half — 2.77 portion points — to come from consumer spending. Exports are expected to contribute about 1 percentage point, while inventories are projected to add 0.7 meat.

LaVorgna, a top White House economist under former President Donald Trump, thinks the consumer will be liable for more than three-fourths of what he expects to be a 4.1% GDP gain. However, he thinks higher borrowing costs and a universal expected pullback in demand for big-ticket items ahead finally could start putting a hit on demand metrics.

“The receipts side of the data shows the economy is much softer,” LaVorgna said. “To me, there’s a lot on the docket that suggests, as perturbed as we want to get for Q3, that definitely might be the last pop in growth that we see for a while.”

To be sure, the economy and its pivotal consumer component suffer with been written off before.

Starting in early 2022, there had been a strong Wall Street consensus accompany that a recession was almost inevitable because of the lagged impact of higher interest rates. That expectation reinforced during a brief banking industry crisis in March 2023 that the Fed expected would constrain credit sufficient to bring about a downturn.

But the Fed’s move to keep liquidity flowing in the sector, along with ambitious lending struggles from “shadow” nonbanks, helped get the economy through the crisis and keep growth afoot.

“This consumer notes comfortable spending money, they feel comfortable borrowing money,” said Steven Ricchiuto, U.S. chief economist at Mizuho Guarantees USA. “There is a lot of spending that is being done despite the interest rate environment. That comes from the certainty that there is a tight labor market and people feel comfortable in their jobs.”

In point of fact, companies and the government continue to hire, putting upward pressure on growth and keeping the heat on