Profits from current production rose $400.9bn in the second quarter, more than five times the first quarter's increase, and real GDP did not move off 1.5 percent

Four hundred billion dollars.

That is how much profits from current production rose in the second quarter, according to the second estimate the Bureau of Economic Analysis published on Wednesday morning. The precise figure is $400.9bn. In the first quarter the same measure rose $74.4bn, so the increase was more than five times larger, and that multiple is this desk's arithmetic on the agency's own two numbers rather than anything the release states.

Output did not move at all.

Real gross domestic product still grew at an annual rate of 1.5 percent, exactly as the advance estimate said on 30 July. The revision inside that unchanged headline was a downward one of less than a tenth of a point, an upward revision to consumer spending offset by an upward revision to imports, which are subtracted in the calculation.

The three measures that did move

Real final sales to private domestic purchasers, which is consumer spending plus gross private fixed investment and is the part of the accounts least affected by trade and government, rose 4.2 percent. That is three tenths higher than the advance estimate said. It is also the widest gap in the release between the private economy and the headline.

Prices were revised up across all three indices the BEA prints. The gross domestic purchases price index came in at 5.8 percent, one tenth above the advance. The personal consumption expenditures price index came in at 5.3 percent, two tenths above. The core reading, excluding food and energy, came in at 3.6 percent, also two tenths above.

Real gross domestic income, the measure built from what people and companies earned rather than from what was bought, rose 2.2 percent. It does not appear in the advance estimate at all, which is why there is nothing to revise it against. The first quarter figure was 1.2 percent, so income accelerated by a full point in the quarter output slowed.

Where the revisions came from

The technical notes name their sources, and they are worth reading, because they explain how a headline can hold still while its parts move.

Consumer spending went up because of services, and within services because of health care, mainly hospitals and physician services. That came from Census Bureau Quarterly Services Survey data that did not exist when the advance estimate was compiled. Goods went the other way. They were led down by recreational goods and vehicles, mainly information processing equipment, on revised Census retail trade data for May and June, and by gasoline and other energy goods on new Energy Information Administration data for May.

Imports went up because of other goods, and the release singles out the territorial adjustment for Puerto Rico, on new trade data for June.

What the release does not say

It gives no reason for the profits figure. Corporate profits by industry sit in Table 6.16D of the interactive application, which is where the composition of that $400.9bn is settled, and this desk has not pulled it. So the number is reported here as the release reports it, with no account of which sectors produced it.

There is also a scheduling note that matters for the autumn. On 30 September the BEA will publish the third estimate for this quarter at the same moment as the annual update of the national, industry and regional accounts, which it says is the first time those have begun on the same day. Everything in this release is superseded on that date.

The estimate came out at 8:30 on Wednesday morning. This desk had not covered it, and it runs now because the second estimate is the version of the second quarter that stands for the next five weeks.