Weekly Market Commentary 1/26/2018

The economy’s year-end performance wasn’t as strong as expected, but it was still solid, punctuating the fastest full-year growth rate since 2014. What’s more, the headline growth rate in the fourth-quarter’s GDP report, released on Friday, masks greater strength in the underlying details. Over all, the Commerce Department reported that real GDP increased by an annual rate of 2.6% in the September-December period. That was a tad below the 2.9% consensus expectation but still put an exclamation point on the strongest stretch of growth in three years. In the second and third quarters, the economy grew by annual rates of 3.1% and 3.2%, respectively.