Real GDP (that is GDP discounting any gains from inflation) increased at an annualized rate of 3.5% in the third quarter. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were looking for 3.3% growth rate. In the second quarter GDP grew at an annualized rate of 4.2%.
Big driver in the quarter was consumer spending, up 4.0%, the strongest growth since the fourth quarter of 2014. Briefing.com calculates that consumer spending contributed 2.69 percentage points to the quarter’s 3.5% growth rate.
Also adding to growth were a build in inventories–which added 2.07 percentage points–and government spending–which increased 3.3% and added 0.56 points to the total change for the quarter. That was the biggest increase in government spending since 2016.
On the downside, imports, which are a negative for GDP, were up 9.1% and the net exports/imports total subtracted 1.78 points from the GDP growth rate.
Very solid economic growth but…and you know there’s always a “but” these days… a measure called real final sales, which subtracts the change in inventories, was up just 1.4%. That’s the weakest growth since the fourth quarter of 2016.
There was a second “but” in the report: Nonresidential business investment grew at just an 0.8% rate, the weakest in almost two years. Wall Street economists immediately began to speculate that this quarter marked the end of any boost to business investment produced by the December 2017 tax cuts.
