<story><title>U.S. Economy Contracted at Record Rate Last Quarter</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-economy-gdp-report-second-quarter-coronavirus-11596061406</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>civilized</author><text>It didn&amp;#x27;t. It contracted by 9.5% in Q2, which, if repeated for four consecutive quarters, would become 32.9%.&lt;p&gt;Annualized figures &lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt; make sense in ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>koheripbal</author><text>To be clear, in finance, we _always_ quote annualized numbers.  It would be super unconventional and misleading to everyone in finance to list an absolute number as you suggest.&lt;p&gt;This is more like the general populace not understanding how finance works rather than the finance press exaggerating the number.</text></comment>
<story><title>U.S. Economy Contracted at Record Rate Last Quarter</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-economy-gdp-report-second-quarter-coronavirus-11596061406</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>civilized</author><text>It didn&amp;#x27;t. It contracted by 9.5% in Q2, which, if repeated for four consecutive quarters, would become 32.9%.&lt;p&gt;Annualized figures &lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt; make sense in ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pwaivers</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s a pretty good explanation of how the figures are reported (and why it can be misleading): &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;economy&amp;#x2F;us-gdp-report.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;economy&amp;#x2F;us-gdp-r...&lt;/a&gt;.</text></comment>