Q1 GDP = 0.7%

The government reported that the U.S. economy grew in real terms by 0.7% during the first three months of the year. That’s an annualized number. That’s pretty a bad print. It’s the worst quarterly number in three years.

From the NYT:

Modest as the headline number looked, it did not come as a surprise to Wall Street — before the report, Wall Street had been looking for growth to come in at 0.9 percent. What is more, many experts said the data was skewed by seasonal factors, like unusually warm temperatures in many parts of the country in January and February.

The economy’s weakness reflected new caution among consumers. Other sectors like housing and business investment turned in a stronger showing, but not enough to offset factors like weaker retail sales.

Two things stand out. The first is how poor it was.

Second is how steady and low economic growth has been during this recovery. Here’s GDP in blue along with a trend line I added in red.

Basically, a lot of smart folks have been paid a lot of money to figure out that the blue line has been rising by about 2.1% consistently for nearly a decade.

Posted by on April 28th, 2017 at 2:13 pm


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