Q1 GDP Expectations to Be Made or Broken by Durable Goods

Economists and market participants know that the actual durable goods report is perhaps the most volatile of all economic reports out there. Bloomberg is calling for a 0.5% gain in March, and the ex-transportation gain is expected to be 0.3%. If these come in as a disappointment again, it almost certainly will drag down GDP expectations next week.

Another issue to consider in the growth of the first quarter is the strength of the U.S. dollar. That may help the consumer spending portion, but first-quarter earnings from major Dow stocks and top S&P 500 stocks are full of commentary about how the U.S. dollar harmed revenue and earnings growth by 5% to 10% in more cases than not based on international sales pressure.

February’s durable goods report was really bad. Rather than a 0.7% estimate from Bloomberg or a 0.2% gain expected by Dow Jones, the report was negative by 1.4%. While this number may be revised this week, it was still so bad that it likely crimped GDP expectations even further. Last month’s revision for January took a 2.8% gain down to 2.0%.

The Commerce Department reported at the end of March that new orders for manufactured durable goods in February decreased $3.2 billion (or 1.4%) to $231.3 billion. Needless to say, these items add up to a lot over the course of each three months.

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So, what should really happen if this week’s durable goods report is another big disappointment? The end result is that economists are likely to tick down their first-quarter GDP estimates for next week even further.

While consumer spending is roughly 70% of GDP, the reports on durable goods are on big-ticket items that consumers and businesses purchase. This makes the report highly volatile, and the volatility in each monthly report can be wildly higher or wildly lower than expected whether the overall economy is booming or slowing.

Overall, orders have fallen well over 5% in the past eight months. It seems like the report this week will have to be very solid to drive up expectations for next week’s GDP report for the first quarter of 2015.

While 24/7 Wall St. really focuses on the core durable goods via the orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft, the reality is that GDP is the added amount of all aspects of the economy.

We saw a 1.0% GDP growth prediction from Bloomberg earlier this week, but we also saw figures closer to 1.4% from Dow Jones as well. Those figures may have since changed. Unfortunately, estimates from a week earlier are not formalized and can change drastically in the days and hours ahead of the formal report. GDP will be released on Wednesday, April 29, 2015.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve branch now expects close to zero percent for the first quarter of 2015. Part of the blame is obvious — the strong U.S. dollar.

Stay tuned.

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