Revising a number from very, very bad to very bad isn’t really good news, or even mixed. Real gross domestic product is now thought to have decreased at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009. The advance estimate for first quarter GDP change was a decline of 6.1 percent.
I have not been logging the corporate profits indicator that is released along with GDP. That number moved away from its fourth quarter red ink, a decline of a quarter-trillion dollars, to a modest increase of $43 billion. (Please comment on whether or not I should be including this indicator in my calculations and analysis.)
The GNI closes out May at 36.1 percent. While that’s certainly better than the 14.7 percent in January, there is still a lot of bad news out there. Next week will be very interesting as we run up to the May employment situation on Friday through April construction spending, personal income, and factory shipments, and a revised first quarter productivity estimate.
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