GDPNow at essentially zero growth. Industrial production, retail sales (control) surprise downside.<\/p>\n
Figure 1:<\/strong> 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.<\/em><\/p>\n That being said, net exports are providing an outsized negative contribution in an accounting sense to Q1 GDP (-2.86 ppts q\/q AR).<\/p>\n Business cycle indicators augmented today with industrial production indicate a slowdown, but we don\u2019t yet have the critical consumption and personal income numbers for March.<\/p>\n Figure 2:<\/strong> Nonfarm Payroll incl benchmark revision employment from CES (bold blue), civilian employment using smoothed population controls, spliced to official\u00a0 (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA 2024Q4 3rd release, S&P Global Market Insights<\/a>\u00a0(nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (4\/1\/<\/em>2025 release), and author\u2019s calculations.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a picture of real retail sales ex-food sales, and ex-motor vehicles.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/econbrowser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gdppix45a.png\")
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