- which as we noted earlier this week, was a huge revision in the series  by the US government which admitted to "processing errors" would lead to substantial downward revisions to recent GDP prints, moments ago the US November Trade deficit printed at $42.4 billion, down from $44.6 billion in October and better than the $44.0 billion consensus expectation.

However, instead of suggesting on overall improvement, the only reason the deficit improved is because as the BEA admitted, "exports decreased less than imports", in other words, both decreased. Specifically, imports fell 1.7% in Nov. to $224.59b from $228.36b in Oct, while exports fell 0.9% in Nov. to $182.21b from $183.78b in Oct. A key driver was another decline in petroleum imports which fell $262 million to a total of $10.7 billion courtesy of the drop in oil prices.