Final 3Q06 GDP: 2.0%
It’s a slight drop from late November’s 2.2% preliminary figure, and up from the initial reading of 1.6% in late October.
Here’s the latest rundown of the 7 best years of the 1960s, 1980s, 1990s, and the past 3-1/2 years:
Annualized GDP growth for the first three quarters of this year (5.6%, 2.6%, and 2.0%, respectively) is a pretty-good, not-great 3.4%.
I’m not even going to try to guess the 4th quarter GDP. This year’s Christmas shopping season appears to be a bit better last year’s. This link says that retail sales are expected to be 5% higher this year vs. 2005, compared to 6.1% last year; however, online sales are expected to be 25% higher, so I think the combination is an overall slight increase. Housing is still in a funk, manufacturing is tapering, but the rest of the economy is sizzling.
You would think that on the whole that all of this would lead to a pretty strong fourth quarter GDP result. I would say I’d be surprised if it’s below 3%, but last year’s fourth quarter came in at a tepid 1.7% (first item at link) despite the very good Christmas shopping season. We’ll just have to see.
