Latest Data on the U.S. Economy Is in: Here's What You Need to Know

Real gross domestic product (GDP), the total output of goods and services in the U.S., increased at an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Wednesday.

This is the first GDP revision for Q2 (April-June) and a slight improvement over Q1’s revised increase of 1.1 percent.

Growth in the second quarter primarily reflected “positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, nonresidential fixed investment, private inventory investment, and residential investment that were partly offset by a negative contribution from federal government spending,” the report notes.

Government spending was cut by only 1.5 percent, compared to Q1's decrease of 8.4 percent. Meanwhile, state and local government spending increased for the first time in a year.

Imports, a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

“The acceleration in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected upturns in nonresidential fixed investment and in exports,” the report continues, “a smaller decrease in federal government spending, and an upturn in state and local government spending that were partly offset by an acceleration in imports and decelerations in private inventory investment and in PCE.”

Real personal consumption expenditures increased 1.8 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 2.3 percent in the first, the report notes.

Durable goods increased by 6.5 percent, compared with earlier estimates of an increase of 5.8 percent. Non-durable goods increased by 2.0 percent, compared with Q1’s increase of 2.7 percent. Services increased 0.9 percent, compared with an increase of 1.5 percent.

Here’s Q2 GDP broken down by its components [courtesy Zero Hedge]:

“Real final sales of domestic product -- GDP less change in private inventories -- increased 1.3 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent in the first,” the report adds.

Markets have reacted well to Wednesday’s GDP and advance jobs reports: