The advance scouts for the Bureau of Economic Analysis have spotted upward economic movement. Armed at this stage only with the economist equivalent of binoculars, the third quarter gross domestic product number released on Thursday is a best guess subject to multiple revisions in the months ahead. But while still below the level of a year ago, US output was estimated to be 3.5 per cent larger in the third quarter compared to the second (on a seasonally adjusted annualised basis), and the BEA very rarely gets the direction wrong. The recession is over.

Reasons for the change, however, do not inspire confidence in the strength of recovery. Car sales, boosted by the expired cash-for-clunkers programme, accounted for around half of that growth in output. Residential investment contributed to GDP growth for the first time in four years, largely as a response to the government’s $8,000 first-time buyer tax credit that awaits extension past November. The effect of such measures is temporary.