Road to Recovery Is Bumpy, But Showing Slow Improvement

NAHB estimates that the just completed second quarter of 2009 resulted in a 1.2% decline in real GDP. Looking forward, expect the economy to expand at an average annual rate of 1.5% in the second half of 2009. – Courtesy of picasaweb.google.com

In the final estimate of real (inflation-adjusted) growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2009 by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP fell 5.5% at a seasonally adjusted, annual rate. However, this decline was less than the bureau’s preliminary estimate of a 5.7% drop, or the 6.1% decline of its advance report — which is notoriously inaccurate because of the large amount of data missing when the early finding is compiled.

This compares to the fourth quarter 2008 estimates of declines of 3.8% (advance report), 6.2% (preliminary report) and 6.3% (final report). The back-to-back, substantially negative quarters are certainly painful indicators of an economy in a sharp recession. Nonetheless, the trend indicates that the worst is over, that the decline is slowing and that we will see growth re-emerge. – Courtesy of NAHB