GDP growth slowed, corporate profits fell in fourth-quarter 2014
The nation’s economic activity cooled in the fourth quarter of 2014, the U.S. Commerce Department affirmed Friday, releasing its final estimate of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the period October through December.
The real GDP — the value of the production of goods and services in the United States, adjusted for price changes — increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 5.0 percent. The figure was unrevised from its earlier estimate last month.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected fourth-quarter GDP growth to be revised upward to 2.4 percent.
The government reported that deceleration in real GDP growth in the fourth quarter primarily reflected an upturn in imports, a downturn in federal government spending, a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment, and a larger decrease in private inventory investment that were partly offset by accelerations in spending by consumers and by state and local governments.
The Commerce Department also reported a sharp downturn in estimated corporate profits for the fourth quarter of 2014. Profits from current production fell $30.4 billion, in contrast to an increase of $64.5 billion in the third quarter.
For the year 2014, profits from current production decreased $17.1 billion, in contrast to an increase of $84.1 billion in 2013, the report said.
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