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HomeMarkets Fading the 4th Qtr GDP Report
Posted by Larry Doyle on January 29th, 2010 2:55 PM |
The 4th quarter GDP report came in this morning at a surprisingly strong 5.7%. However, like many other things in this Uncle Sam economy, not everything is as it appears. For that very reason, I wanted to wait to write about this report until I monitored the market’s reaction. Let’s navigate.
The question for the economy, and in turn the markets, is to what degree the supposed growth embedded in the 4th quarter GDP is sustainable. To determine that, people need to appreciate the fact that this 5.7% GDP figure was driven to a large extent (60%) by a slowing in the drawdown of inventories. Are you scratching your head wondering what that means? Let’s just reduce it to the fact that drawing down inventories is not exactly a driver of growth at all. (more…)
