Three Reports Show Economy Is Growing at a Stronger Pace
Government reports yesterday indicated that the U.S. economy is surging ahead, with the Commerce Department now likely to revise its estimate for growth in the final three months of last year to around 5 percent from 3.8 percent, analysts said.</br></br>Yesterday's reports showed that factory output hit a new peak last month, new claims for unemployment benefits fell early this month and the nation's merchandise trade deficit declined to $7 billion in December rather than rising as expected.</br></br>For all of 1992, exports rose $26.4 billion from 1991, but imports went up a larger $45.4 billion, as the year's deficit rose to $84.3 billion from the previous year's $65.4 billion. It was the first increase since 1987 when the deficit hit a record $152.1 billion.</br></br>The Labor Department also reported that consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the biggest monthly rise in two years. However, experts said the increase did not signal an acceleration of inflation.</br></br>The report on December's trade balance and other recent data on the fourth quarter have been considerably stronger than expected. "What today's data mean is that {gross domestic product} will be revised to well over 5 percent," the financial markets research firm of Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in Princeton, N.J., told its clients.