Hey, Ross here:
If you’ve spent much time reading the news lately…
You’d think the U.S. economy was barely holding together.
High rates. Sticky inflation. Tariffs. Iran. Debt.
There’s no shortage of reasons to expect something to go wrong.
But I was digging through the latest economic numbers this week…
And one reading jumped out at me.
Chart of the Day
This is Goldman Sachs’ Current Activity Indicator, or CAI.
Instead of relying on one big government report, Goldman combines 37 different measures of inflation-adjusted economic activity to get a more real-time read on what’s happening across the economy.
And the latest number is surprisingly strong.
The CAI climbed to +3.6% in August, up from 3.4%.
That’s its highest reading since April 2022.
But the trend on the right side of the chart is even more telling.
Economic momentum has been building for months.
The reading was much weaker around the spring of 2025…
Then started climbing…
And has now pushed back to levels we haven’t seen in more than four years.
You can also see that this isn’t being driven by one isolated pocket of strength.
Manufacturing is doing a lot of the work.
But consumers, housing, labor, and other parts of the economy are contributing too.
That’s a very different picture from the one you’d get if you simply just read the negative clickbait headlines.
And this isn’t the first data point telling us the economy has been stronger than people expected.
Take a look at what’s been happening inside corporate America:
Right now, 88.3% of S&P 500 companies have seen their forward revenue estimates rise over the past 12 months.
And 85.9% have seen forward earnings estimates move higher.
So this isn’t just one or two giant companies dragging the numbers up.
Analysts are raising forecasts across a huge chunk of the market.
Put that next to Goldman’s economic data and you get a pretty consistent message:
The underlying numbers have been running stronger than the mood around them.
And there’s a trading lesson buried in that gap.
Insight of the Day
The biggest opportunities appear when perception falls behind reality.
Wall Street can be incredibly slow to admit it got a company wrong.
A stock disappoints for a couple quarters, analysts slash their numbers, investors dump it…
And that reputation can stick long after the business starts getting better.
That means even the stock starts turning around…
By the time Wall Street finally starts upgrading the stock, the easy money may already be gone.
So I like to look for these turnaround clues before the analysts wake up.
Tomorrow morning I’ll share with you perhaps the most powerful clue I look for…
So keep an eye out for that.
In the meantime…
Here’s one perfect stock for what’s coming next.
Customer Story of the Day
“I am new to investing and love the help that Ross provides.
I have little means to invest so trying to follow the quick investments to build my cash flow for bigger investments.
Ben was great in leading me to make my membership a lifetime member in the Trading Club and all the services that Ross provides at this time.
I want to be able to have a good retirement and make sure my wife is taken care of if I go, due to my health from exposure to a toxin in my military service.
Watching Ross and speaking with Ben gives me the warmth and great feelings that I have become part of an extended family.”
Ross Givens
Editor, Stock Surge Daily
