by Calculated Risk on 10/01/2010 08:30:00 AM
Friday, October 01, 2010
August: Real Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increases 0.2%
From the BEA: Personal Income and Outlays, August 2010
Personal income increased $59.3 billion, or 0.5 percent ... Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $41.3 billion, or 0.4 percent.
...
Real PCE increased 0.2 percent, the same increase as in July.
...
Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was
5.8 percent in August, compared with 5.7 percent in July.

This graph shows monthly real PCE since Q4 2009. the dashed red lines are the quarterly PCE (note: left scale doesn't start at zero to show the change).
Using the two-month method to estimate PCE, it looks like real PCE growth will be about 2.0% annualized Q3 2010 - or about the same as in the previous two quarters.
This month the saving rate increased slightly ...

I expect the saving rate to rise further - perhaps to 8% or more.
The key in this report is that PCE growth in Q3 will probably be around 2.0% - barring a significant change in September. This suggests sluggish GDP growth in Q3.