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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 numbe

• vladd 6y ago
  In finance, you would compare 2020-q2 with 2019-q2. You would still get a similar 8% - 9% drop. That figure (32.9%) is based on future projections. Stating the predicted future as something that took place already would get someone fired in finance. >> This is more like the general populace not understanding how finance works It looks to me more closely as someone applying mathematical formulas either without understanding what you are doing de-facto behind them, or being ill intended in the first place to manipulate the market. Either way, it's bad. Unless you're explicitly writing "in Q2, the GDP dropped at an annualized rate of -33%", you're committing the capital offense when it comes to writing good journalism: not knowing your average audience, not adapting your content to the audience and probably most significantly, not understanding as a journalist what you're writing about.
• em500 6y ago
  Note that national accounting growth rate reporting conventions are local. In the US, official GDP comes from bea.gov, which annualizes the quarter-on-quarter growth by default. In the UK it's done by ons.gov.uk, which reports (seasonal-adjusted) quarter-on-quarter without annualizing. In China, www.stats.gov.cn used to report quarter-on-quarter in the past, but they changed to year-over-year rates (which is different from annualized quarter-on-quarter) a few years ago.