Hard to see why everyone gets so excited about gross domestic product data. The stock market surged Thursday after the pre-opening announcement that the economy had grown 3.5% in the third quarter. But why?

Is anyone really surprised by the announcement, in the closing days of October, of data on how the economy performed in July, August and September? Do we really need anyone to tell us? Didn't we all live through it? Aren't investors supposed to be interested in the future, rather than the past?

That's how it used to be. Nobody cared, nor should they have. But the world is so uncertain and dangerous now, we have to take seriously every little bit of information that could conceivably bring any sanity to our crazy world.

So let's take a look at the GDP data and try...