GDP growth revised up. Should you believe it?

Economy growing at 2.6 percent, according to revised GDP. But estimates of residential fixed investment look shaky.

Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their third "estimate" of the Q3 2010 GDP reportshowing that the economy continued to weakly expand with real GDP increasing at an annualized rate of just 2.6% from Q2 2010.

On a year-over-year basis real GDP increased 3.25% while the quarter-to-quarter non-annualized percent change was 0.63%.

The latest report reveals continued weakness in housing with residential fixed investment declining at a rate of 27.3% from the second quarter though additional revisions are needed to get something that resembles accuracy from this figure.

Note that the administration (and the BEA) have yet to take down their estimates for Q2 residential fixed investment with still sits at the lofty level of a supposed 25.7% quarter-to-quarter change... not likely.... look for that figure to be revised down in coming releases impacting the anemic "final" Q2 results.

Both imports and exports of goods and services slowed in the third quarter while investment in equipment and software was revised down to show a slower pace of growth at a still notable 15.4%.

In any event, these GDP report should be viewed with a high degree of skepticism.

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