Still bad news for U.S. economy

The U.S. economy suffered further bad news. First, the Commerce Department left unchanged its estimate for growth in the fourth quarter, to 0.6% only. However, analysts expected a 0.8% enhancement.

These figures are 2.2% growth over the whole year, from 2.9% in 2006, which is the lowest rate since 2002. Household consumption fell sharply in the last quarter (+1.9% instead of 2% estimated earlier, and after 2.8% in the third quarter) and investment in the stone has indeed fallen by 25, 2% (instead of -23.9%), the largest decline recorded since 1981. Business investment grew by only 6.9% (instead of 7.5%).

Inflation is well above normal

The index measuring prices related to consumption expenditures (PCE) increased 4.1% (instead of 3.9%), and the PCE core index (excluding food and energy) increased 2.7 %, as in the first estimate. Now the Fed wants to keep it normally from 1% to 2%.
Finally, the weekly claims for unemployment benefits rose 19,000 to 373,000 in the United States during the week ended Feb. 23. Analysts had forecast 350,000 jobless.