Gross domestic product increased at a 5.7% annual rate in the advance fourth-quarter report, surpassing economists’ estimates and posting the largest quarterly increase in almost six years as businesses began restocking their inventories and exports jumped, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Consumer spending rose at a 2.0% annual rate in the fourth quarter, following a 2.8% increase in the third quarter. The increases represented the first back-to-back quarterly consumer spending increase in two years.
Core personal consumption expenditures, excluding food and energy purchases, increased 1.4% following a 1.2% rise in the third quarter. Economists forecast the core PCE price index to increase 1.3%.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected 4.4% GDP growth for the quarter, according to the median estimate.
For all of 2009, GDP fell 2.4%, the largest annual decline since a 10.6% drop in 1946. GDP rose 2.2% in the third quarter.
