Weak consumer spending during the holidays, a slowdown in business inventory investment and declining government spending accounted for the fourth quarter's anemic showing.
32.
Economists view this positive intended inventory investment as a form of spending & mdash; in effect, the firm is buying inventories from itself.
33.
The Commerce Department said that economic growth was tempered by " negative contributions from equipment and software and from private inventory investment ."
34.
The slightly faster rate of growth was largely a result of upward revisions in consumer spending and a rise in farm inventory investment.
35.
In discrete time, the end-of-period stock of inventories minus the beginning-of-period stock of inventories equals the flow of inventory investment per time period.
36.
-- Inventory investment grew at a slower $ 7.9 billion pace in the quarter after rising by $ 16.5 billion in the earlier quarter.
37.
In Tuesday's statement, the Fed said, " The economy, bolstered by a marked swing in inventory investment, is expanding at a significant pace ."
38.
"However, both the upward impetus from the swing in inventory investment and the growth in final demand appear to have moderated, " it said.
39.
Inventory investment plummeted to 900 million deutsche marks ( $ 608 million ) in the second quarter from 12.4 billion marks in the first.
40.
"The slowing of the rate of inventory investment suggests that most of the long-awaited inventory correction is behind us, " he said in a statement.