The US economy shrank 0.7% in the first three months of 2015, compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n
The Bureau of Economic Analysis significantly revised down its earlier economic growth estimate of 0.2%.<\/p>\n
The previous calculation underestimated the rise in the volume of imported goods and overestimated capital investment by companies, it said.<\/p>\n
The US economy last contracted in the first quarter of 2014, when it shrank by 2.1%.<\/p>\n
As was the case last year, a harsh winter may have been partly to blame for falling goods and services production in the US.<\/p>\n
Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of economic activity, slowed to 1.8% growth in the first quarter, slightly below the 1.9% growth initially estimated.<\/p>\n
The Bureau also highlighted the impact of weak exports and government spending.<\/p>\n
‘Second quarter pick-up’
\nThe strong US dollar has pushed up imports and lowered exports. At current dollar prices, GDP slipped further from 0.1% growth to a 0.9% contraction.<\/p>\n
The revision in GDP prompted investors to shift to traditionally safer assets, such as bonds. This is why yields on US Treasuries have fallen as their price has risen.<\/p>\n
GDP figures are closely watched by investors, as the Federal Reserve makes decisions based on the health of the economy.<\/p>\n
“From a policy perspective, the first quarter lull is already history; it’s the extent of the rebound that will be critical in determining the timing of the Fed’s first move on interest rates,” says Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.<\/p>\n
“Survey evidence is already pointing to a second quarter pick-up,” he added.<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US economy shrank 0.7% in the first three months of 2015, compared to the same period last year. The Bureau of Economic Analysis significantly revised down its earlier economic growth estimate of 0.2%. The previous calculation underestimated the rise in the volume of imported goods and overestimated capital investment by companies, it said. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":120672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-120671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/120672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}