The stock market remains very expensive as of the end of 3Q2014

Nominal GDP rose to a level of $17.5354 trillion annualized for 3Q2014, according to the advance estimate of third quarter GDP released today.

Total stock market capitalization had an approximate value of $24.9126 trillion on September 30, 2014.

The ratio of total market cap to GDP on the record date therefore comes to 1.421, down slightly from the 1.445 level which prevailed in 2Q.

The ratio was as low as 0.74 as recently as the end of 2008.

The stock market therefore was about 92% more expensive at the end of September 2014 than it was at the end of 2008, and became just 1.7% cheaper between the second and third quarters of 2014.

3Q2014 GDP Advance Estimate comes in at 3.5%: Deliberately underreporting imports right before the election?

The share contributed to GDP in today's report breaks down as follows:

Personal consumption of goods and services: 34%

Private domestic investment: 4%

Net from export trade: 37%

Government consumption: 23%

I don't believe the import number in the report, which was -1.7%!

What, did the weather close all the ports of entry during July, August and September and we didn't know about it?

Imports, of course, subtract from GDP, so this negative import number boosts the contribution made by exports to GDP.

The last time the import number was negative was in the advance estimate of 1Q GDP, at -1.4%.

You remember 1Q, right, the terrible winter months of January, February and March? But as we all know, that negative number became +0.7% in the second estimate, and +1.8% in the third and final report.

Also note that a surge in defense spending in the third quarter for the war against ISIS all by itself accounts for almost 19% of GDP in this report and 80% of the reported share of government consumption contributing to GDP.

Backing out that government spending on the war means the GDP number is more like 2.8%.

And economists had expected GDP to come in at 3%. 

Jobless claims average 265K weekly, not-seasonally-adjusted, in October 2014

265,000 claims weekly in October is the equivalent of an annual rate of 13.8 million total claims.

Claims in the last four months are now averaging roughly 266,000 weekly compared with the first half of the year at 326,000 weekly.

This means total claims are on track with two months left in the year to come in at a record low in the 21st century in the vicinity of 15.4 million total claims. The best record had been under George Bush with 16.2 million claims.