RIP: Q3

Today is the final day of the third quarter. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the third quarter has been going on since 1974.

The good news is that the government revised the GDP growth number higher for the second quarter to 1.7% from 1.6%. As I said before, don’t be too impressed since this is for a time period that began six months ago and ended three months ago. When the original report came out in July, it said that GDP had grown by 2.4%.

Overall, GDP continues to be dragged down by a widening trade deficit between the United States and foreign exporters, said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo.

But the report did contain a small sign of hope for the recovery, he said: spending by both consumers and businesses was up significantly from the prior quarter, and investments in new equipment and software alone were up nearly 25%.

“When you look into the details of the report, consumer spending and business investment actually ticked up,” Vitner said. “They’re not off the charts, but they are posting very solid gains. So in some ways the economy looks a bit firmer.”

The Dow is now up for the year. Of the previous 68 years when the Dow was up after three quarters, it continued to rise 71% of the time and ended the year in the black 94% of those years.

Our Buy List is having another market-beating day. I’m very happy to see that NICK has been as high as $9.60 per share today. The stock is up about four-fold from its low point two years ago.

Posted by on September 30th, 2010 at 11:05 am


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