Federal Reserve Beatdown: GDPNow Slashes Q1 GDP Forecast to Just 0.2%

How will the Yellen Fed recover from this humiliation? They’ve been hiking into a maelstrom — reducing the money supply at a time when the economy is literally in shambles.

Prove me wrong.

The final GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 0.2 percent on April 27, down from 0.5 percent on April 18. The forecast of first-quarter real consumer spending growth fell from 0.3 percent to 0.1 percent after yesterday’s annual retail trade revision by the U.S. Census Bureau. The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to first-quarter growth declined from -0.76 percentage points to -1.11 percentage points after this morning’s advance reports on durable manufacturing and wholesale and retail inventories from the Census Bureau. The forecast of real equipment investment growth increased from 5.5 percent to 6.6 percent after the durable manufacturing report and the incorporation of previously published data on light truck sales to businesses from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

The sages over at JP Morgan have cut estimate too, down to 0.3%

We now believe that real GDP increased 0.3% saar in 1Q. This incorporates the various source data that were released this morning as well as a correction to our treatment of the annual revision to the retail sales data that was released yesterday. The updated details of our forecast are in the table below.

In terms of the retail sales data, it appears that this year the BEA will not incorporate the updated figures until the May GDP report, so this Friday’s GDP release will be based on an older vintage of retail sales data. Reverting to the older data, we think Friday’s GDP report will show real consumption at 0.9% saar.

Turning to today’s reports, the flurry of information was a negative for 1Q growth on net, mainly through the inventory components. Wholesale inventories declined 0.1% in March, retail inventories increased 0.4%, and durable manufacturing inventories ticked up 0.1%. These figures continued what has been a weak run for much of the inventory data, and we now think that the real change in inventories in 1Q will actually be negative (at -$2bn saar). This very weak inventory figure expected for 1Q should be a positive development for 2Q growth, but we hold our 2Q growth forecast at 3.0% saar.

Separately, the nominal goods balance widened from -$63.9bn to -$64.8bn in March, with declines in both exports (-1.7%) and imports (-0.7%) during the month. This was slightly less widening in the deficit than we had been expecting for the month and it looks like net exports will be a small positive for growth in 1Q. However, the trade report did have some negative implications for equipment spending, and we now think that real equipment spending increased 5.2% saar in 1Q despite a modest upside surprise on the core capital goods shipments data that were also released today. Core capital goods orders and shipments have both been trending higher lately, with the latest figures showing core orders up 0.2% in both February and March and core shipments up 0.4% in March after a 1.1% gain in February.

Two things come to mind when viewing this forecasts.

1. How can Janet Yellen and her cadre of losers look in the mirror after learning that they were hiking into a potential recession?
2. What will Trump do to up the ratings of this bad show?

We all know the President loves high ratings. I am certain a recession is worse than death for him, form a PR standpoint. He will have none of it and will raze North Korea to the ground in order to avoid being canceled in 2020.

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