FT: revised QIII growth up, QE2 profits

Consumer spending up, revised GDP growth in QIII 2.5%
Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 per cent of economic activity in the US, grew 2.8 per cent compared with the previous estimate of 2.6 per cent. That is the fastest such increase in four years and contributed 2 percentage points to the growth rate.

The revised data suggest that the summer slowdown in the US economy was not as severe as previously thought but growth is still not fast enough to bring down the 9.6 per cent unemployment rate...

Corp profits up 12.5%:
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New data released by the BEA also showed that while workers continue to struggle, corporations have bounced back from the recession. Corporate profits surpassed their peak level of four years ago during the third quarter to reach an all-time high of $1,659bn.

Profits have recovered rapidly as US companies benefit from cost cutting during the downturn and booming earnings from emerging markets. But they remain slightly below their peak as a share of GDP, at 12.5 per cent compared with the 12.8 per cent that they reached in 2006.

FED makes 62.4B in QE2
Profits earned by the Federal Reserve reached an all-time high of $62.4bn at an annualised rate in the third quarter even before the central bank began to expand its balance sheet further.

The Fed is making enormous profits because it earns more on the long-term bonds it buys as part of its quantitative easing programme than it pays to banks on their reserves. The Fed paid $35bn in profits across to the Treasury in the first half of this year.