Yeah I thought the same. When I woke I thought the Dow would be up 2% on the old bad news is good news with an OPEC oil deal bounce on top. Maybe they'll push it hard in last 30 mins. Anyway, these durable goods certainly will shine a light on the US GDP figure which comes out tonight. I think you have to strip out trans and defence to take out any large variances which makes it down 4.3% in Dec and down 3.9% yoy. I don't think one can say durable makes up this amount of GDP but it certainly shows an extreme the lack of confidence by consumers ( of all types ) and flies in the face of the Fed approach that everyone is happy and confident in the US because they've got a job.
Forecast for US GDP this qtr is 0.8%. I don't think it will be negative but it could get close. Retail sales weak, business investment weak and manufacturing is at recession levels. Housing is strong both new & existing but this trend started at the beginning of 2015 and hasn't really broken out past those initial levels so I don't think that it will offset the weakness in other areas. Anyway, interesting times ahead.
