Third Quarter GDP, 2006

And the new numbers are in! What do they show? From today's BEA press release:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the third quarter of 2006, according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.6 percent.

...The deceleration in real GDP growth in the third quarter primarily reflected an acceleration in imports, a downturn in private inventory investment, a larger decrease in residential fixed investment, and decelerations in PCE for services and in state and local government spending that were partly offset by upturns in PCE for durable goods, in equipment and software, and in federal government spending.

That hurts, a little. This estimate comes in below expectations of a number more like 2.0%. I'll take a closer look at the data later today, but the one thing that really stands out right away is the big slowdown in residential investment. It looks like this is the housing market slowdown in action...