US: Durable goods orders likely to rebound in March – Rabobank

Rabobank analysts are expecting that the US durable goods orders are likely to show a rebound in March after a modest slowdown in February.

Key Quotes

“Since durable goods orders made a strong start in January, business investment is likely to make a positive contribution to economic growth in the first quarter. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate of Q1 GDP growth (quarter-on-quarter, at an annualized rate) stood at 2.8% on April 19. Sometime after today’s durable goods orders the Atlanta Fed will publish its update of GDPNow. This will be the last nowcast before Friday’s (14:30 CET) official advance estimate of Q1 GDP growth by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The current Bloomberg consensus forecast is 2.2%, somewhat lower that the Atlanta Fed’s estimate. However, we should keep in mind that the difference looks bigger in terms of the annualized growth rates used by the BEA.”

“The risk of a near term recession has fallen substantially and we expect the current economic expansion to become the longest on record in July.”

“Despite the stronger data the US treasury yield curve remains inverted at the 6 month- 5 year segment. This means that the curve continues to point to a recession in 2020. That’s why we expect the US economy to spend the second half of 2020 in recession and the Fed to cut rates in 2020, instead of another hike as implied by the dot plot.”