When reviewing America’s economic 2018 report, it is important to focus on the year in its entirety rather than look at what happened in the last month of the year. According to a recent interview held with NPR’s Scott Simon, it’s important to know this:

“The numbers for 2018 are good. The gross domestic product is growing. The U.S. economy is humming. But the numbers for December are bad. The Nasdaq, the Dow and the S&P all ended down yesterday.”

The US economy remains on its decade-long growth spurt.  It’s just that this month has seen some issues like: the partial government shutdown; continual drop in the stock market; increasing disarray in Trump’s administration; America’s trade war with China and more.  Oxford Economics Chief US Economist Gregory Daco however sees that the main attributes required for growth have not been impacted and thus we will continue to encounter expansion.  However, the stock market plunge could actually cause a domino effect with other issues.

So just because the economy took a bit of a nosedive in the third quarter should not put anyone into a panic. Growth remains on track to reach Trump’s 3 percent target for 2018 with a GDP increase at a 3.4% annualized rate (only a slight drop from the 3.5% October estimation). Still in the second quarter growth reached 4.2 percent.

Trump is blaming all of this on Jerome Powell and the hike in key short-term rate by the Federal Reserve tweeting that its officials “don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch — he can’t putt!”