Poll: What is our recession outlook for the US?

[mostlylong]

In another thread (below) I forecasted consumer spending (PCE, personal consumption expenditures) from retail sales (ARS).

ARS is released mid-month and PCE (which I believe will be closer to the actual input for consumer spending in GDP) is not released until month end.

So the idea is to use retail sales to get a slightly earlier (2 weeks, lol) read on consumer spending in GDP.

Retail sales (for month of May) will be released Tuesday, June 17.

Economists’ consensus forecast is -0.7% for May month over month, with the decline due to a slowdown in auto sales relative to April (as best I can tell).

@mostlylong

@mostlylong

forecast of about +0.4% PCE MoM for April (again, real dollars, seasonally adjusted). There is a cloud of PCE values near ARS = -0.12%, so obviously there will be uncertainty associated with this estimate, say a range of PCE MoM % of about 0.2% to +0.6%.

Actual value from BEA for April is +0.2%, at lower end of range above. This is a nominal number, real PCE for April is +0.1%, so GDP is barely growing in April from consumer spending