GDPNow at essentially zero growth. Industrial production, retail sales (control) surprise downside.

Figure 1: GDP (bold black), WSJ January survey mean (blue), WSJ April survey mean (tan), GDPNow of 4/16 (sky blue square), Goldman Sachs tracking forecast of 4/16 (inverted purple triangle), Kalshi forecast of 4/16 (red *), all in billions Ch.2017$ SAAR. Source: BEA 2024Q4 3rd release, WSJ survey.

That being said, net exports are providing an outsized negative contribution in an accounting sense to Q1 GDP (-2.86 ppts q/q AR).

Business cycle indicators augmented today with industrial production indicate a slowdown, but we don’t yet have the critical consumption and personal income numbers for March.

Figure 2: Nonfarm Payroll incl benchmark revision employment from CES (bold blue), civilian employment using smoothed population controls, spliced to official  (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$

Keep reading this article on Econbrowser Blog - James Hamilton & Menzie Chinn.

Leave a Reply