Senior strategist Dirk van Dijk, CFA has issued notes on this morning's GDP numbers. These notes will be published in two separate blogs -- Growth Rates and Contributions to Growth.
The recession is over!
In the third quarter, GDP grew by 3.5%, comfortably ahead of expectations for 3.0% growth. This is a huge improvement over the 0.7% decline in the second quarter and the 6.4% plunge in the first quarter.
The internals of the report were strong as well, although it appears that much of the growth came from things like the "Cash for Clunkers" (C4C) program and the extraordinary levels of support that are currently being given to the housing sector.
I will first go over the percentage growth rates for the main components of GDP, and then how much each part contributed (or subtracted from the 3.5% growth rate). This is probably the more important part since the size of the different parts of GDP are very different, and a small percentage change in a big component can have more impact than a large change in a small component.
Just as a reminder, GDP is equal to the sum of Consumer spending, Investment spending, Government spending and net exports, or Y = C + I + G + (X - M), and I will be using that framework for the discussion.
Growth Rates
The overall 3.5% growth of GDP was almost matched by its biggest component, Personal Consumption expenditures, or PCE, which grew 3.4% -- a big improvement over the 0.7% decline in the second quarter and the 0.6% increase in the first three months of the year.
It is important to note that during the recession consumer spending declined far less than did overall GDP, especially in the first quarter, so the consumer was becoming a much bigger part of the overall economy. This is not healthy over the long run, but at this point I think people are happy to get some growth wherever we can find it.
Consumers spend on both Goods and Services, and Goods are broken down into Durable and Non-Durable goods. The big mover in the third quarter were Goods, which increased by 8.1% following a decline of 5.6% in the 2Q and an increase of 2.5% in the 1Q. Spending on Durable goods was the real driver, growing at an annualized rate of 22.3% in the 3Q, following a 5.6% decline in the 2q and a 3.9% increase in the 1Q.
Spending on Non-Durable goods tends to be much more stable than spending on Durable goods. Non-Durable goods spending rose by 2.0%, reversing a 1.9% decline in the 2Q, which was in turn a reversal of a 1.9% increase in the 1Q.
Spending on Services tends to be even more stable than spending on Non-Durable goods. Service spending grew at an annualized rate of 1.2% in the 2Q, up from a 0.2% increase in the 2Q and a 0.3% decline in the 1Q. Historically, spending on Durable goods has been one of the key drivers to get us out of a recession, just as not spending on Durable goods has been one of the key reasons for falling into recessions.
