Another look at GDP

(Dan here….Lifted from comments here)

Spencer says:

You can download the most recent GDP in excell form directly from the BEA.

In the 2nd quarter exports accounted for 1.12 percentage points of the 4.1% surge in real GDP. That is almost 30% of growth.

Apparently the big jump in exports was due to large purchases of soy beans in May, before new tariffs were imposed. This was obviously a one time unusual event that will quickly reverse and dampen real GDP for the rest of the year.

The y/y growth in real GDP is now 2.8% VS 2.6% in the first quarter. Interestingly, from 2012 to 2016 under Obama there were 6 quarters when the y/y growth in real GDP exceeded 3%.

rjs says:

Soybean sales would be in exhibit 7 of the trade report:

https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/2018/pdf/trad0518.pdf

there was a $1,956 million increase to $4,142 million in our exports of soybeans…
i’d note that there were concurrent big decreases in our exports of oil & oil products which could reverse as well…

meanwhile, an inflation adjusted $58.2 billion downward swing in inventory growth subtracted 1% from the 2nd quarter’s growth rate…the -27.9 bilion Q2 inventory figure was the worst contraction going back at least 6 years (looking at the extent of the pdf table)…so just a modest increase in inventory growth in Q3 could add that 1% right back…that would cover the expected reversal of your exports…so other components being equal then, we could see another +4% in Q3…

to clarify; my inventory GDP numbers are at an annual rate, soybeans are unadjusted for May only…