Jason Stipp: I'm Jason Stipp for Morningstar and welcome to The Friday Five, five stats from the market and the stories behind them.
Joining me, as always, with The Friday Five is Morningstar markets editor Jeremy Glaser.
Jeremy, thanks for being here.
Jeremy Glaser: You're welcome, Jason.
Stipp: What do you have for The Friday Five this week?
Glaser: We're going to look at the numbers 1.7%, $85 billion, 25%, 3%, and finally 2.7%.
Stipp: 1.7% doesn't sound like a lot, but it was much better than people were expecting for second-quarter GDP this week. What's your take on that number?
Glaser: The first read on second-quarter GDP was pretty good. As Bob Johnson talked about earlier this week (Morningstar.com), it was driven by a few things. The government spending number looked a little bit better than expected, business investment was up, and consumer spending remained fairly robust considering everything that's going on in the market right now.
There were a few quirks to this report, some changes in methodology, some revisions. So it was maybe a little bit more difficult to read than some standard numbers. But generally, it shows that the economy is continuing to trudge along. We're not seeing incredible growth. But we're also not really seeing signs of incredible weakness either, and things like manufacturing and housing are doing pretty well and moving the economy forward, even if it is in fits and starts.
Bob still thinks that for 2013, 2% GDP growth still remains a reasonable target, and that really fits that narrative as well.
Stipp: Playing a big role in the economy, of course, is the Fed. We heard from them this week. $85 billion is the amount that they are buying in bonds every month, and for now at least that's the plan to continue.
