Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (6593)	8/3/2001 6:13:33 PM
From: westpacific	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

US Q2 GDP gain could be revised to shrinkage -Lehman Wait till this hits next week....on Tuesday Friday August 3, 5:52 pm Eastern Time NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. economy may have contracted for the first time in eight years in the second quarter, rather than expanding slightly as the government estimated last week, Lehman Brothers said on Friday. Lehman said unexpectedly steep drops in construction spending and manufacturers' inventories reported this week may mean the government will revise down its first estimate of growth in the April-June period to a -0.2 percent annualized rate of contraction. The government, which revises its GDP estimates as new quarterly data rolls in, last week estimated the economy grew at an anemic 0.7 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, nearly half the 1.3 percent annual pace of the first quarter. ``Construction data have been revised down sharply, reflecting new estimates of government construction,'' Lehman economists wrote in a research note. The government this week said June construction spending fell a sharper-than-expected 0.7 percent, with public construction falling by 0.6 percent after rising by 5.4 percent and 3.1 percent in the prior two months of the quarter. ``A similar story holds for inventories. In its initial estimate of manufacturing inventories, the Commerce Department had assumed a 1.0 percent decline over the quarter; more recent data show a 1.5 percent decline,'' Lehman wrote. The government on Thursday said inventories for manufactured goods fell 0.71 percent in June, after firms reduced overstocks by 0.61 percent and 0.19 percent in May and April. ``There is still a lot of data to come, but together these revisions would push Q2 GDP growth to minus 0.2 percent,'' Lehman said. Many economists said the weak, but positive, gross domestic product (GDP) reading raised the odds the economy would avert a textbook definition of a recession as two straight quarters of contracting GDP.