The economy is doing “exceptionally well” as President-elect Donald Trump gets ready to enter the White House, according to Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.

Zandi, speaking at the Consumer Federation of America’s financial services conference on Wednesday, noted some of the glowing areas: Gross domestic product has been growing at around 3%, productivity and business formation rates are strong and the stock market is up.

“The economy can weather a lot of storms,” Zandi said.

But, he added, “I do think there are some potential storms coming” next year under the new administration.

Zandi expects Trump to act quickly on deporting immigrants and implementing tariffs, two moves that could have profound impacts on the U.S. economy.

“I believe President Trump is going to do what he said he’ll do on the campaign trail,” Zandi said. “He’s going to be quite aggressive in pursuing the policies.”

Immigration has played a big role in the economy’s strength, Zandi said.

Others agree. “Recent immigrants have flowed disproportionately into the parts of the labor force that were particularly tight in 2022, contributing to labor supply in places where it was most badly needed,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note to clients in May.

Meanwhile, tariffs create “a whole lot of uncertainty for businesses,” Zandi said. As a result, they could lead to job losses.

Tariffs are also likely to impact people’s spending, he said.

“It’s going to mean higher costs for consumers, it’s a tax increase,” Zandi said.

Trump‘s universal tariff proposals could cause prices to skyrocket on clothing, toys, furniture, household appliances, footwear and travel goods, according to a recent report from the National Retail Federation.

Trump has said he would impose a 10% or 20% tariff on all imports across the board.

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The NRF found that the impact of the tariffs would be “dramatic” double-digit percentage price spikes in nearly all six retail categories that the trade group examined.

For example, the cost of clothing could rise between 12.5% and 20.6%, the analysis found. That means an $80 pair of men’s jeans would instead cost between $90 and $96.

These new prices would squeeze consumer budgets, especially for low-income households that spend triple as much of their monthly budgets on apparel as high-income households spend, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For some investors, bigger pretax accounts can be “a tax nightmare in retirement” when it’s time for RMDs, certified financial planner Derek Williams with Veratis Advisors in Cary, North Carolina previously told CNBC.

Pretax RMDs boost your adjusted gross income, which can cause higher Medicare Part B and Part D premiums, among other tax consequences, he said.

Your RMD is based on your pre-tax retirement balance as of Dec. 31 from the previous year. That means your 2024 RMD uses year-end figures from 2023.

For 2024, the calculation divides your 2023 pretax balance by an IRS life expectancy factor.  

If you skip an RMD or don’t take the full amount by the deadline, you can expect a 25% excise tax on the amount not withdrawn. The penalty falls to 10% if the RMD is “timely corrected within two years,” according to the IRS.

The agency could waive the RMD penalty if the shortfall was due to “reasonable error” and you take “reasonable steps” to correct it. But you must file Form 5329 with a letter of explanation.

If you need to take an RMD and also want to plan a year-end gift to charity, it’s possible to accomplish both with a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD, experts say.

QCDs are transfers from an individual retirement account to a non-profit organization, which “counts against your RMD but doesn’t get added to your taxable income,” according to CFP Michael Lofley with HBKS Wealth Advisors in Stuart, Florida.

Plus, you can use the strategy to score a tax break for charitable gifts, even if you don’t itemize deductions on your tax return, said Lofley, who is also a certified public accountant.

There’s been a higher standard deduction since 2018, and only about 10% of taxpayers itemized tax breaks on 2021 returns, according to the most recent IRS filing data.

Consumers saw inflation pick up slightly in November, as price increases in categories like groceries, gasoline and new cars outweighed a deceleration in others like shelter during the month.

The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 2.7% last month relative to November 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. The annual rate was up from 2.6% in October.

“I don’t see an acceleration” of inflation, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “But I think it’s persistently too strong.”

“It’s not like there’s any smoking gun saying, ‘This is the problem,'” Zandi said. “It’s kind of broad-based, a little on the high side everywhere.”

That said, there are reasons for optimism, according to economists.

Namely, consumers can take “solace” that economic trends underpinning inflation, such as moderating wage growth in the labor market, remain positive, Zandi said.

“We still think we’re on the overall path of disinflation,” despite the appearance of an inflation “revival,” said Joe Seydl, a senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.

Inflation has pulled back significantly from its pandemic-era peak of 9.1% in June 2022.

The U.S. Federal Reserve aims for a long-term inflation target around 2%. (The central bank uses a similar but different inflation gauge than the CPI, known as the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, or PCE.)

“The bulk of this progress is behind us now and inflation may remain stubbornly sticky near current levels for a time,” Rick Rieder, head of BlackRock’s global allocation investment team, wrote in a note Wednesday.

While prices pressures have broadly eased across the U.S. economy, there have been some headwinds in recent months.

Grocery inflation jumped notably in November, from a 0.1% monthly reading in October to 0.5% in November, for example. (For context, a consistent CPI reading of about 0.2% each month would generally be in line with target inflation, economists said.)

Egg prices jumped about 8% during the month alone, and are up 38% in the past year, according to CPI data.

“We saw a bounce back in food prices,” Zandi said. “Part of it is avian flu: Egg prices continue to be very strong.”

Food prices are generally volatile, so one month of elevated grocery-inflation data shouldn’t set off alarm bells, Zandi said. However, it will be an important category to watch as groceries “probably matter most” to the majority of households relative to pricing, he said.

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New vehicle prices rose 0.6% from October to November, according to CPI data. Those for car insurance rose just 0.1% over that period, but are up 13% over the year.

In 2021, car prices spiked amid a shortage of semiconductors essential to manufacture them. That led to a severe vehicle shortage and high inflation. Later, prices fell as dealers rebuilt their inventories. Now, some price volatility is natural as the market settles back into equilibrium, Seydl said.

Car prices feed into motor vehicle insurance: When prices are elevated, insurers’ cost to replace vehicles after a car accident is also much higher. Insurers also typically need approval from regulators to raise consumer premiums, which takes time.

Airline prices, like those of autos, are also “finding a bottom,” Seydl said. Actual fares are roughly where they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to CPI data.

“We haven’t really had any airfare inflation from 2019 to today,” Seydl said. “We have just seen a lot of volatility.”

Labor costs are the primary input for health care inflation, he said.

While wage growth has broadly eased across much of the economy — generally lessening the likelihood that businesses will raise prices to compensate for labor — the health care sector still has a labor shortage, making price strength “pretty resilient,” Seydl said.

Prices for medical care services were up 0.4% from October to November, and by 4% over the year.

As the largest CPI component, housing also continues to prop up overall inflation readings. Shelter accounted for 40% of the monthly CPI increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, it has declined notably: The shelter index increased 4.7 percent over the last year, the smallest 12-month increase since February 2022, BLS said.

Inflation for rent and owners’ equivalent rent (an estimate of the rental price a homeowner could command for their property) saw their smallest one-month increases since July 2021 and April 2021, respectively.