SAN FRANCISCO -- Economists at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and others trimmed their outlooks Tuesday for real gross domestic product growth in the third quarter to closer to 3% from the Commerce Department's initial estimate of 3.5%. The economists cited new data on inventories in the September factory orders report, out Tuesday. J.P. Morgan and Action Economics now expect GDP rose 3.1%, Merrill and Nomura Securities see 3.3%. RDQ Economics also said it expects a downward revision, by a half point. Such fine tuning of GDP estimates is typical in the week's following the government's first release of its own view of economic growth.

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