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A Closer Look at U.S. GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a country's most comprehensive economic scorecard. Real economic growth in the US has been better than in most other countries
. However, as the chart below illustrates, US GDP growth remains well below long term historical averages.
Reported real GDP growth was 1.4% for the first quarter, down from 2.1% for the fourth quarter of 2016. Post-2009, US growth has equaled 2.1% per year, a full percentage point below the 3.3% pre-2007 pace.
The first estimate for second-quarter GDP will be released on Friday, July 28.
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Positive earnings reports from corporate America, along with some good news on the economic front, lifted all the major stock indexes higher last week. A favorable earnings report from Netflix helped boost the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite. Housing starts and housing permits both rebounded in June after prior drops in May; and initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level in two months, indicating a still-strong labor market.
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> Housing Data: Housing has been up and down all year, but last week's report from the Commerce Department showed a strong rebound. Housing s
tarts jumped 8.3% and permits were up 7.4% in June.
Permits are strongest in the Midwest followed by the West and South.
Despite June's gains,
second-quarter rates lagged the first quarter by 5.9%, averaging 1.164 million starts vs. 1.238 million. Permits are also down 3.4%, at 1.217 million vs. 1.260 million. These lower numbers will weigh on GDP for the second quarter.
> Tech Milestone: It took 17 years, but the S&P 500 Information Technology Index finally recovered from the implosion of the dot-com bubble. The index broke a record last Wednesday, and companies that weren't even public when the earlier peak was reached, played a key role. Six of them accounted for a combined 24 percent of the S&P 500 Information Technology Index's rally from an October 2002 low, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Facebook Inc., which wasn't even founded until 2004, was among them.
> Fed Meeting:
The Federal Reserve meets this week, but after raising rates in June for the fourth time this cycle, market expectations for a rate hike are very low. Looking out further, the market expects slightly less than a 50% chance of a rate hike by the Fed's December meeting.
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The entire social media world organized just for you.
Just recently they revealed version 5.0 of their map which included a number of changes since their last update in 2013. Click here for an enlarged version.
Version 5.0 included the removal of 84 companies and the addition of 141, plus four new categories:
messaging, crowdfunding, travel and hospitality, and connecting IRL (which stands for in real life). In total, it identified 28 distinct forms of social media. Notable trends include the growth of livestreaming, messaging apps, and conversational commerce.
Clearly social media goes far beyond Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and has, in fact, changed everything about how we communicate, learn and share.
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New Market Wealth Management offers modern investment solutions backed by extensive research and experience serving the needs of wealthy families. Through our strategic partnership with
Cliffwater LLC
, we provide institutional-quality research, investment due diligence and asset allocation tools. We believe this level of experience and unique access to in-depth, sophisticated research are essential for success in today's complex world markets.
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