Better than it seemed

**patanx** Wed Nov 29, 2006 1:43 pm

Better than it seemed
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may be on to something. A day after he indicated the U.S. economy was stronger than investors seem to think, a revision of the third-quarter gross domestic product on Wednesday seemed to prove his point.

The Commerce Department raised its GDP reading for the three months through September to an increase of 2.2%, significantly better than the 1.6% it had previously reported. Wall Street analysts had expected an upward revision, but only to about 1.8%.

While better than expected, the pace of growth was still weak by recent standards, largely the result of a crumbling U.S. housing market. Spending on homebuilding was down 18% year-over-year, a new 15-year low. That knocked off 1.16 percentage points off economic growth, the most in almost a quarter of a century.

The upward revision reflected a trade deficit that weighed less on GDP than previously thought, as well as healthier business inventories.

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**tinmanvi** Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:49 pm

but then jobless claims spiked today
and the 4-wk MA is well over 300K. And don't get me started on the trade & budget deficits