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US Q2 growth of 2.6% underscores resilience

Washington - Pickups in consumer and business-equipment spending powered a US economic rebound in the second quarter, signalling the eight-year expansion is on track to be sustained, Commerce Department figures showed on Friday.

Highlights of Q2 GDP (first estimate):

• Gross domestic product rose at a 2.6% annualised rate from the prior quarter (estimate 2.7%); first-quarter growth has been revised to 1.2% from 1.4%.

• Consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy, grew 2.8% (matching estimate) after 1.9% gain.

• Nonresidential fixed investment climbed 5.2%. Trade added to growth as exports rose faster than imports; inventories were a slight drag.

Key takeaways

The results confirm that the slowdown at the start of 2017 was temporary and show an economy growing in the first half at about a 1.9% rate, compared with the expansion’s 2.2% average pace through the end of 2016.

Consumer spending led the rebound last quarter, helped by a steady job market and household finances boosted by stock and home-equity gains. Disposable incomes, adjusted for inflation, posted the best back-to-back quarters since the first half of 2015.

Business investment in equipment rose at an 8.2% pace, the most in almost two years, signalling companies are optimistic about demand in the US as well as in overseas markets.

The overall pace of nonresidential investment eased from 7.2% amid a slowdown in the structures category that followed a boom in oil-and-gas wells in the prior period. Intellectual-property investment also slowed.

A particular weak spot last quarter was residential investment, which fell by the most since 2010 following a strong gain in the previous period. Builders are coping with a shortage of available labour and lots, and warm weather in the first quarter may have pulled forward some activity.

Price data in the report indicated that inflation moved away from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal. Excluding food and energy, the Fed’s preferred price index, tied to personal spending, rose at a 0.9% annualised rate last quarter, matching the weakest gain since 2010.

Even so, the results are unlikely to deter Fed policy makers from implementing plans to begin shrinking their $4.5trn balance sheet in the coming months and continuing a gradual pace of interest-rate increases. Fed officials said in a statement on Wednesday after their latest meeting that they still expect inflation to stabilise around their objective “over the medium term.”

In addition to the pickup last quarter, results for the first three months of the year showed the economy had slightly more tepid growth than previously reported, in part because of a bigger drag from inventories and weaker business investment. At the same time, economic growth from 2014 to 2016 was marked up to an average annual rate of 2.2% from 2.1%, according to annual revisions.

Economist’s view

“It’s a 2% economy, plus or minus a little bit,” said Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co in New York. “We continue to plod along.”

Other details

• Nonresidential fixed investment, which includes spending on equipment, structures and intellectual property, added a 0.64 percentage point to growth. Residential investment shrank at a 6.8% rate.

• Net exports added a 0.18 percentage point to growth, similar to the previous period; inventories subtracted a 0.02 point after a 1.46-point drag in the first quarter.

• Stripping out trade and inventories - the two most volatile components of the GDP calculation - so-called final sales to domestic purchasers rose 2.4%, equal to the previous quarter’s pace.

• Government spending increased at a 0.7% rate, adding 0.12 point to growth, on national defense spending; state and local outlays fell 0.2%.

• After-tax incomes adjusted for inflation increased at a 3.2% annual pace, the most in two years, after 2.8% in the previous period; the saving rate slipped to 3.8% from 3.9%.

• Employment-cost index rose 0.5% in second quarter (forecast was 0.6%) after 0.8% in previous period, according to separate Labour Department report on Friday.

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