BETTER TO BE LUCKY THAN COMPETENT:

On Thursday, the Department of Commerce reported that the US economy grew at a far faster pace in the third quarter of 2016 than previously thought -- an annualised rate of 3.5 per cent. Since the 1980s, the only president to have taken office while the economy was growing at a faster rate was George HW Bush.

The latest data stand in sharp contrast to the free-falling economy Barack Obama inherited in 2009, when the US was losing almost 800,000 jobs a month. On the campaign trail, Mr Trump repeatedly characterised the economy under Mr Obama as a disaster, but the economy has come a long way since then.

An analysis of economic metrics paints a picture of an economy finding solid footing after the financial crisis. Unemployment stands at a nine-year low, the S&P 500 continues to break records, and home sales hit their highest rate since 2007.

Here are seven charts showing how the trends Mr Trump will inherit compared with the state of the US economy at other recent presidential inaugurations...

Tweet   @brothersjudd