Deceptive Headline GDP. Initial Jobless Still too High.

GDP (3rdQ2012 – second estimate)

– GDP was revised from +2.0% to +2.7%
– The GDP deflator (a measure of inflation) was 2.7%.

The increase looks good until one looks inside.  According to BEA, GDP was made up of the following components:

– real personal consumption was +1.4% compared with 1.5% in 2ndQ
– Durable Goods was +8.7%
– Nondurables were +1.1%
– Services were +0.3% compared with +2.1% for the previous quarter.
– exports were +1.1% compared to the previous +5.3%.

This is not the picture of a growing economy. It shows a weakening of consumer demand and a weakening of exports as the EU problems contract the economies there.  Only Durable were strong and Durables show no consistancy.

Initial Jobless Claims (week ended 11/24/2012)

– New Claims (seasonally adjusted) Level 393,000.
– Previous was 410,000
– 4-week Moving Average 405,250 an increase of 7,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 397,750.
– Unadjusted Claims were 357,015

New Claims in New York were -30,603 from the previous week implying that there were few Sandy related New Claims. This level of New Claims is still too high.

Pending Home Sales Index (October 2012)

Pending Home Sales Index 104.8. Previous was 99.5
Pending Home Sales Index – Month/Month 5.2%

This is an improvement over yesterday’s disappointing New Nome Sales.  The data is from NAR.  I mention that because NAR does not have a  pristine history of accuratly reporting Home Sales.