Posted on 04/08/2016 12:52:21 PM PDT by mykroar
Some economists now see first-quarter growth as negligible, and it could easily turn out to be negative.
Economists shaved already weak growth forecasts by a few more tenths Friday, after wholesale inventories fell 0.5 percent month over month in February, much more than the anticipated 0.1 percent decline. January was also revised down by 0.4 percent.
The closely watched Atlanta Fed GDPNow model now shows first-quarter growth tracking at 0.1 percent, compared to a 0.4 percent estimate earlier in the week. JPMorgan economists now forecast the economy only expanded by 0.2 percent in the first quarter, from 0.7 percent.
Barclays economists shaved tracking GDP growth for the first quarter to 0.3 percent from 0.4 percent. "Weaker-than-expected wholesale inventories in February, along with downward revision to prior months' data, cut our estimate of total private inventory investment in Q1. Part of the decline in wholesale inventories in February look anomalous however, leading us to revise up our March wholesale inventory assumption," said Barclays economists in a note.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Whatever the first-quarter GDP number is when reported on April 28, it's likely to be revised and it could easily be negative — or positive. According to a CNBC study, the average error rate since 1990 in government quarterly GDP reports was plus or minus 1.3 percent.
They’ll correct in again April 28th, but they will really correct it sometime in Mid November.
After the elections.
It will probably show we started a recession in the 1st quarter of this year.
I heard one nitwit on the radio today, talking about how this was just a normal revision of the ‘robust numbers’ for the first quarter.
And by then they’ll have figured out how to blame it on Bush.
Can I get a refund on the taxes I’ve paid since 2009?
I don’t think I’m getting what I paid for.
You mean on whichever Republican we swear in in January of 2017.
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