Major revision sees US GDP soar past expectations

The US economy expanded at a much greater rate than expected, according to latest figures released this afternoon, helping push benchmark US treasury yields back up to 2.82%.

The second reading of Q2 GDP saw the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) raise its estimate from 1.7% to 2.5% on an annualised basis. Economists had expected an annualised expansion of 2.2%. The BEA said the upwards revision was largely due to stronger export growth and weaker import growth than initially estimated. Aside from government spending, all sectors of the economy made a positive contribution to the headline GDP number, which follows a Q1 reading of 1.1%. Latest jobs data, meanwhile, showed US weekly jobless claims fell 6,000 to 331,000 last week, also ahead of expectati...