Recession At The Gate: JPM Cuts Q4 GDP From 1.0% To 0.1%

We already noted the cycle-low Q4 GDP forecast by the Atlanta Fed, which in a release which came out just as the crashing US equity market closed revised the last quarter GDP to just 0.6%, which delay however according to the same Atlanta Fed was due to “nothing more nefarious than technical difficulties.”

Curiously, JPM had no problems with the 15 second exercise of plugging in raw data into the GDP “beancount” model. And, according to chief economist Michael Feroli, in the 4th quarter, the same quarter in which Yellen finally felt confident enough to declare the US economy strong enough to withstand a rate hike and a tightening cycle, US growth ground to a halt. As a result JPMorgan just cut its Q4 GDP forecast from 1.0% to 0.1%, which would suggest in 2015 US GDP grew 2.3%, down from 2.4% in 2014.

If JPM is right, and if the US economy effectively did not grow in the fourth quarter, this would make it the worst GDP print since Q1 of 2014, and tied for the third worst quarter since 2009, which incidentally was our knee-jerk assessment after yesterday’s latest round of abysmal economic data.

Another downward revision to GDP: Yellen may have raised rates in a negative GDP quarter

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2016

The cherry on top: JPM also cut its Q1 2016 GDP forecast from 2.25% to 2.00%. Expect many more downward revisions to forward GDP in the coming weeks.

Below is a chart of what US GDP looks like if JPM’s forecast proves to be accurate: