Market Review, October 2011

Led by personal consumption, the U.S. economy picked up pace during the third quarter, growing at 2.5%, above the consensus estimate of 2.4%, according to the advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. With this rise, real GDP is now just above the previous high set in 2007. Personal consumption expenditure (PCE) (red bar in the chart below) contributed 1.72 percentage points to the third quarter GDP, up from a 0.5 percentage point contribution during second quarter. Non-residential investment (grey bar) and net exports (green bar) also contributed positively to the GDP while inventories contracted. Real final sales – GDP less changes in private inventories – increased 3.6%.