Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their first "estimate" of the Q4 2010 GDP report showing that the economy continued to expand with real GDP increasing at an annualized rate of just 3.2% from Q3 2010.On a year-over-year basis real GDP increased 2.79% while the quarter-to-quarter non-annualized percent change was 0.78%.
The latest report reveals an unexpected increase for housing with residential fixed investment increasing at a rate of 3.4% from the third quarter though additional revisions are needed to get something that resembles accuracy from this figure.
Note that the administration (and the BEA) have yet to take down their estimates for Q2 residential fixed investment which still sits at the lofty level of a supposed 25.7% quarter-to-quarter change... not likely.... look for that figure to be revised down in coming releases impacting the anemic "final" Q2 results.
Non-residential fixed investment in structures supposedly eked out a slight gain rising 0.8% from the third quarter while the "change in real private inventories" began to bear down subtracting some 3.7% from real GDP after having worked to prop the value for five consecutive quarters.
Both imports and exports of goods and services worked to contribute positively to GDP with exports of services increasing at a rate of 10% while imports of goods declined at a rate of 15.5% (counted as a contribution to GDP) from the third quarter.
