{"id":113,"date":"2007-07-28T14:09:19","date_gmt":"2007-07-28T14:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-finance-zone.co.uk\/uncategorized\/us-economy-sees-growth-increase\/"},"modified":"2007-07-28T14:09:19","modified_gmt":"2007-07-28T14:09:19","slug":"us-economy-sees-growth-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/2007\/07\/28\/us-economy-sees-growth-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"US economy sees growth increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>The US economy grew at a faster rate than expected over the past three months, figures have shown, recording the best quarterly performance since early 2006.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The economy grew by 3.4% on an annual basis, bouncing back from a dismal first quarter where it grew just 0.6%. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The figures were keenly anticipated following signs that the slump in the US housing market has been having a negative impact on the wider economy. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The figure surpassed expectations by analysts who expected a 3.2% increase. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The growth figures were welcomed by US President George W. Bush who praised the “resilience” of the American economy. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“The world economy is strong and I happen to believe one of the main reasons why is because we remain strong,” he said. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Separate figures showed that consumer sentiment has also improved, although a little less quickly than many analysts had predicted. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

According to Reuters and the University of Michigan, their consumer sentiment index was 90.4 in July, up from a 85.3 in June. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, the growth figures from the Commerce Department indicated a further deterioration in consumer spending between April and June and continued weakness in the housing market. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The rate of growth in consumer expenditure slowed to 1.3% from 4.2% earlier in the year, reflecting increasing caution among households about the economic outlook. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Investment in house building fell 9.3% on an annual basis, although the fall was less severe than the 15.8% decline seen in the first quarter. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, core consumer prices – excluding food and energy – rose by 1.4% over the period, their slowest quarterly rate of growth since 2003. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Analysts said the data should give some reassurance to volatile equity markets. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“There are an awful lot of concerns out there about growth,” said Rudy Narvas, a senior bond analyst from 4 Cast Limited. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“This report says the economy is OK.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But Capital Economics said it did not expect the past quarter’s growth rate to be sustained and that annual growth would not be higher than 2%. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The US Federal Reserve is anticipating somewhat stronger growth in the second half of 2007 but has still revised downwards its full-year growth forecast to between 2.25% and 2.5% after the slowdown earlier this year. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Fed has kept interest rates on hold at 5.25% for several months as it balances concerns over the extent of the housing slump with signs that inflationary pressures may be easing<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US economy grew at a faster rate than expected over the past three months, figures have shown, recording the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-finance-zone.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}