Today, per Nasdaq.com, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 4.49 points to 13107.48, the S&P 500 went up 1.19 points to 1410.49, and the NASDAQ gained 4.05 points to close at 3081.19. The average of the three gains is less than 0.1%.
That didn't stop the disseminators of CNN Money's email at the close of business from interpreting the result as being due to "signs of stronger U.S.growth." Huh?
Here it is:
As to the Associated Press, the headline at Matthew Craft's story also said that the barely noticeable gains occurred "After US Growth Revised Higher."
Geez people, you've got to be kidding. These results are barely beyond the realm of rounding errors.
If there are signs of stronger growth, they're really, really well-hidden.
If the CNN and AP believe that today's report on second-quarter gross domestic product, which was revised up to an annualized 1.7% from an initial estimate of 1.5%, is one of the future signs, well, they need to get a grip. The second quarter is past, and the reported increase matched expectations, meaning it was already priced into the market before it was announced. Earlier in the day, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger, who along with other AP business reporters has been in the habit of finding positive things to write about the economy even if they aren't really there, conceded that the GDP result probably means that "growth will stay weak in the second half of the year."
People looking for stronger growth signs won't find them in spiking gas prices (the price of regular gas in the Greater Cincinnati-area per CincyGasPrices.com was $3.949 and rising as of 6:20 p.m.).
They won't finds signs of stronger growth in falling consumer confidence; rising initial unemployment claims; the most recent increase in the nation's unemployment rate, Gallup's belief that the rate is still rising; the mixed bag of housing results (lower starts and sales of existing homes accompanied by slowly rising home prices and a tepid increase in new-home sales); or the Federal Reserve's "beige book" report today said, per the Wall Street Journal (other reports seem to be exaggerating the positivity of its contents), "that the economy continued to expand, but the pace of growth slowed in several regions."
I could go on, but I don't need to. CNN and AP are making something out of nothing for apparently no other reason than to make the economy appear better than it really is.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
