The daily business briefing: October 30, 2020

The U.S. economy surges but remains below pre-pandemic level, stock futures fall after Apple, Amazon earnings, and more

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1. U.S. economy surges but remains below pre-pandemic level

U.S. gross domestic product jumped by 7.4 percent in the third quarter, which translates into a 33.1 percent annualized rate, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The GDP rise from the second to the third quarter set a record, but it came after a record contraction from the first to the second quarter after the coronavirus crisis erupted. The economy still has shrunk by 10.3 percent so far in 2020. In fact, the 3.5 percent total GDP shrinkage during 2020 "means we are still down almost as much as we were during the height of the Great Recession," says Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. Looking at annualized growth reveals how much bigger the economy would be in the unlikely case it "grew at this rate for the next three quarters," economist Justin Wolfers tweeted.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.