Chart Of The Day: Change In Q1 American Debt And GDP
Big GDP Miss: 2.2% Vs Expectations Of 2.5%
So much for the +3.0% GDP whisper number. Instead of printing at the expected number of +2.5%, the first preliminary GDP data point (two more revisions pending) came out at 2.2%, a big disappointment for a quarter which had a substantial boost from the weather.
But then the people’s consumer sentiment “ticks higher”?
Consumer Sentiment Ticks Higher in April
U.S. consumer sentiment was little changed in April as Americans expected the economy to slowly improve, though they were less cheery about the state of their own finances, a survey released on Friday showed.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s final reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment inched up to 76.4 from 76.2 in March.
The survey topped economists’ forecasts for 75.7, which had been the preliminary figure reported in early April.
While recent developments in the overall economy were viewed as being somewhat less favorable, the outlook for the recovery still improved.
The gauge of consumer expectations rose to 72.3 from 69.8, while the component measuring the five-year outlook rose to 92 from 89.
However, just one in four households expected their finances to improve during the year, and the survey’s barometer of current economic conditions fell to 82.9 from 86.0.
All these numbers are but a smokescreen. What they do screams so loudly in our ears, that we cannot hear a word they say.
And even now, I hear the cries from beneath the altar, the cries of those slain for the giving of their testimony, “How long… until You judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”