The US Commerce Department slashed its estimate for U.S. GDP growth in the second quarter from a 2.4 percent annual rate to 1.6 percent, confirming fears that economic growth has slowed to a crawl.
While the numbers were grim, they were expected to have been worse. The growth rate topped calculations by economists who had forecast that the earlier estimate would be almost halved to an annualized rate of 1.4 percent.
Corporate investment in such big-ticket items as new machinery and computers drove a lot of the growth in the second quarter but trouble in the nation's housing sector, unemployment and, especially, trade all were a drag.
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