WASHINGTON - The U.S. current account deficit fell to $117.4 billion in the second quarter of 2012, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
The figure represented a 12.1% decrease from the revised first quarter deficit of $133.6 billion, originally reported as $137.3 billion.
The deficit came in below the median $126 billion estimate of economists polled by Thompson Reuters. The second quarter deficit represented 3% of gross domestic product, down from 3.5% the previous quarter.
The second quarter deficit decrease mostly reflected a falling deficit on goods and a rising surplus on income, the Commerce Department reported. The goods deficit dropped to $185.8 billion from $194.3 billion the previous quarter, while the surplus on income shot to $55.5 billion in the second quarter from $47.4 billion in the first.
