The US economy is expected to expand by 1.5% in the first quarter of 2020, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest Nowcasting Report showed on Friday. The forecast for the second quarter plunged to 0.1% from 1.1% in the previous week.
“Negative surprises from regional survey data were only partially offset by positive surprises from industrial production and capacity utilization data,” the NY Fed noted in its publication. “Regional manufacturing survey data, which historically convey significant information at the beginning of the reference quarter, drove the sizeable decline of the nowcast in 2020:Q2.”
Market reaction
Wall Street’s main indexes lost their recovery momentum and are trading mixed. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was flat on the day while the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.8%. On the other hand, the S&P 500 is down 0.65%.