Economics
Missing U.S. GDP Data Now Available With New Census Report
- Advance wholesale, retail inventory figures for June issued
- Combined with trade, new figures fill in information gaps
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The Bureau of Economic Analysis no longer needs to take an educated guess for some components of gross domestic product when it issues its first estimate of U.S. economic growth on Friday. The Census Bureau has filled in the remaining blanks.
A Census report Thursday for the first time provided data on wholesale and retail inventories for the last month of a quarter, figures that were previously available only with a one-month lag. Combined with the advance estimates for trade flows, also issued Thursday, the more timely update may improve the accuracy of the growth numbers and limit the magnitude of next month’s GDP revisions.