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WALLSTREET JOURNAL As of 12:57 p.m. EDT Thursday, August 28, 2003
THE AFTERNOON REPORT
By JOSEPH SCHUMAN
The Afternoon Report is the Online Journal's twice-daily
roundup and analysis of the day's top stories, published at
12:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET.
U.S. Economy Grew Faster
Than Thought in 2nd Quarter
The American economy grew at a faster pace during the second quarter than
the government previously thought, and the country's performance was
certainly better than how it felt at a time when war, SARS and poor
economic data fueled uncertainty and worry. But it isn't clear what
today's revision signals for the future.
The Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product grew at a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.1%, revised from an early estimate of
2.4%, and after growing at a pace of 1.4% in the first quarter. (There
will be a final revision to the GDP number this fall with more complete
source data.) And the market value of the nation's output of goods and
services in the second quarter totaled $10.794 trillion. As with the
initial report, the Commerce Department said the biggest factors in GDP
growth were increases in consumer spending, which rose 3.8%, after a 2%
increase in the first quarter; business spending, which rose 8%, following
a 4.4% first-quarter increase; and the largest spree of government defense
spending since the early 1950s, an increase of 45.9% that followed a 3.3%
decrease.
Now, we do know that personal spending at the time was getting a
tremendous boost from the mortgage-refinancing boom, which is now
dissipating. And we know the Pentagon, during the second quarter, was
paying out billions of dollars to replace the missiles, bombs and other
expensive armaments it was dropping on the forces of Saddam Hussein in
Iraq. The U.S. continues to spend a lot of money on both its military and
civilian rebuilding operations in Iraq, and the Bush administration looks
set to request more from Congress (read more on rebuilding efforts). But
it isn't clear how much of that will be defense spending that goes to
factories and employees at home and in turn gets recycled back into the
U.S. economy. Any excitement over today's figure may also stem from
comparisons to the poor economic performances of recent quarters past.
* * *
A Shrug on Wall Street
The U.S. stock markets seemed to treat the GDP revision as a nonevent, and
trading was light, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down about 15
points by midday and the Nasdaq Composite Index up about half a dozen
points. The yields of U.S. Treasury bonds were lower, and the dollar was
weaker against the euro and the yen. European market generally traded
higher, with the exception of Britain's, and markets in Asia were mixed,
with stocks falling in Tokyo and rising in Hong Kong.
* * *
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