ShadowStats.com report

Thanks, Bill Sardi:

Here are John Williams SHADOWSTATS.com comments about GDP

April’s Worst-Ever Economic Reporting Is on Top of Pending Downside Benchmark Revisions to Pre-Pandemic GDP. Headline April 2020 economic reporting of the last several days, and the April employment and unemployment detail of a week ago, have shown the sharpest-ever hits to the domestic economy. Friday (May 15) saw the steepest monthly declines in the 101-year reporting history of Industrial Production and the 73-year reporting history of Retail Sales. In the context of other developments, such is suggestive of an annualized real quarterly collapse of about 50% (-50%), the latest ShadowStats estimate for the July 30th initial reporting of Second-Quarter 2020 Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Consensus Outlook appears be running around minus 30% (-30%), while the respective New York and Atlanta Fed models show deepening annualized drops of 31.1% (-31.1%) and 42.8% (-42.8%), based solely on the headline economic reporting through May 15th (wait until they process the residential construction and sales in the week ahead). Such follows a First-Quarter 2020 Real GDP annualized contraction, currently of 4.78% (-4.78%), and a Fourth-Quarter 2019 annualized gain of 2.13%, with both 1q2020 and 4q2019 subject to likely downside revisions in the July 30th GDP benchmarking, if not before, with the second estimate of First-Quarter 2020 GDP on May 28th. Historic Hit to Second-Quarter 2020 Real GDP Could Be Followed by Some Low-Level Bottom Bouncing, or Moving Off Bottom in Third- and Fourth-Quarter Activity. Assuming some meaningful shift towards reopening the economy in the next several months, economic “recovery” likely will not be as rapid as some would hope, due to the extraordinary damage already done by, and the disruptions from, the massive, panicked shutdown. Initially, renewed “growth” might look like bottom bouncing, in a protracted L-shaped or flattened U-shaped recovery, off a potential Second-Quarter 2020 trough.

Williams Comments:

“Worst U.S. Economic Activity Ever Reported”

“Second-Quarter 2020 Real Annualized GDP Contraction of
About 50% (-50%) Will Surpass Anything Ever Seen”

“U.S. Economy Already Was in Trouble Before the Pandemic, Because of Intensifying Federal Reserve Policy Malfeasance and Federal Government Fiscal Malpractice”

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