It’s all going according to plan. Famous last words, I know.

GDP revisions released on Wednesday were yet another example of bad news of the good variety.

The US economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.1% last quarter, the BEA said. That was down from the advance estimate but still perfectly healthy.

The revisions came on the heels of a string of data which suggested the economy is cooling around the edges, consistent with the kind of controlled slowdown the Fed is hoping to engineer.

Personal consumption, which decelerated markedly in Q2 from Q1, was actually revised higher, but only by 0.1ppt. That too was amenable to positive spin. Spending was ever so slightly healthier last quarter than initially thought, but the consumption impulse is waning in line with monetary policy’s aims.

Nonresidential fixed investment was revised down to a 6.1% pace. That’s meaningful, but still modest in the context of the initially-reported 7.7%.

GDI rose 0.5%, the data showed. The NBER averages that with GDP when assessing the business cycle. That average, 1.3%, was the highest since Q3.

Core PCE for Q2, meanwhile, was revised down to 3.7%, the lowest since Q1 of 2021.

“At risk of going broken record, lower GDP and core PCE just hammers home the same message: BAD IS GOOD,” Nomura’s Charlie McElligott remarked.