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发帖数: 259 | 1 Goldman Cuts GDP View to 2% as Economy Weakens
Faced with the bruising headwinds of high unemployment, weak manufacturing
and an otherwise listless economy, Goldman Sachs has slashed its forecast
for gross domestic product.
The firm cut its second-quarter GDP outlook to 2 percent from 3 percent, a
stunning blow for an economy expected to be well on the path to recovery
following the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.
From a policy standpoint, Goldman said it does not expect the subpar growth
to change the Federal Reserve's plans to end quantitative easing later this
month. However, Goldman economist Sven Jari Stehn acknowledged that "the
deterioration in economic activity, on its own, would call for fresh
monetary easing."
The primary thing keeping the Fed from going to another round of easing —
or QE3 in market jargon — is that, while the economy languishes, inflation
actually is rising more than expected, he said.
"The Federal Open Market Committee is therefore stuck between a rock (slow
growth) and a hard place (higher inflation)," Stehn wrote in a research note
to clients. "We expect Chairman (Ben) Bernanke to indicate at next
Wednesday’s FOMC press conference that there is little prospect of either
monetary tightening or monetary easing anytime soon."
Goldman's move comes amid a week of disappointing manufacturing indicators
from both the Philadelphia and New York Feds that compounded market fears
over debt contagion from Greece and other peripheral eurozone nations. The
International Monetary Fund also has reduced its GDP forecast from the US,
cutting its view to 2.5 percent.
On the bright side, Stehn wrote that the firm still expects economic
activity and GDP to pick up later in the year, though the bar has been
raised.
"At this point, we still expect a bounceback in Q3 and beyond, but will need
to see significant improvement in the data over the next few weeks to
maintain that view," he said.
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From the Fed's perspective, Stehn said the central bank remains within a "
zone of inaction" that requires negative real interest rates — in this case
about negative-0.6 percent when comparing inflation to interest — until a
more robust recovery can be declared.
More Fed easing, or QE3, would come only if unemployment increases 1.25
percentage points from its current 9.1 percent, while inflation also would
have to ease and drop 1 percentage point from its current 3.6 percent
annualized rate.
The Fed's easy money policies, which have pushed its balance sheet past the
$2.5 trillion mark, are cited by some economists as a key factor in the
current rise in inflation.
"Our analysis therefore suggests that larger surprises than those seen in
recent weeks are needed for the FOMC to move out of its zone of inaction,"
Stehn said. "We conclude that the unexpected weakness in growth and
uncertainty about the effect of temporary factors will keep policy and, most
likely, policy communication unchanged for the foreseeable future."
But for Bernanke, explaining Fed policy, which he will do following next
week's Open Market Committee meeting, has become even trickier.
"Most likely, he will be 'balanced' by emphasizing both the disappointment
in the activity indicators and the higher inflation data," Stehn said. "So
the press conference is unlikely to be pleasant for either the chairman or
his audience."
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