NY Fed's GDP Nowcast for Q2 2020 slumps to -0.4%

The US' economy is expected to expand by 1.5% in the first quarter of 2020 and seen contracting by 0.4% in the second quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's latest Nowcasting Report showed on Friday. 

"News from this week’s releases, which included the first hard data for March, decreased the nowcast for 2020:Q1 by 0.2 percentage point and decreased the nowcast for 2020:Q2 by 0.7 percentage point," the NY Fed said in its press release. "Negative surprises from labor data drove most of the decrease."

Risk aversion

Major equity indexes in the US continue to push lower on Friday. As of writing, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were down 2.4% on the day while the Nasdaq Composite was erasing 2.1%.