On another set of horrid trade data, the GDPNow forecast ends on a low note. 
Gold Adjustment Background
Pat Higgins at GDPNow has made official adjustments to its model to account for gold imports.
The base model doesn’t adjust for gold imports/exports but the BEA does.
Gold bars and bullion are considered financial assets and gold imports have soared along with other imports, front-running tariffs.
For discussion, please see my March 27, 2025 GDPNow Discussion.
The gold-adjusted numbers are the ones to follow. Starting February 28, my chart only shows the adjusted numbers.
Latest Developments
- The advance economic indicators took 1.1 percentage points off the Nowcast to -1.5 percent.
- The advance economic indicators took 1.2 percentage points off Real Final Sales to -1.8 percent.
- Change in Private Inventories (CIPI) rose by 0.11 percentage points on the Advance Wholesale Inventory numbers
The Key Number
Real Final Sales is the important number. The difference between the Nowcast and RFS is CIPI adjustment that nets to zero over time.
Looking ahead, I wonder about inventories because of all the tariff front-running of parts and general merchandise from highly-tariffed nations.
The Bloomberg Econoday consensus is +0.2 percent in a range of -1.5 percent to +1.1 percent.
My Estimate for Real Final Sales on March 27 in reader comments was -1.4 percent. I will stick with that.
I suspect GDPNow may be a bit off on its gold adjustment for March.
Related Posts
April 29, 2025: New Record Goods Trade Deficit on More Tariff Front Running
The goods deficit is a record -162 billion for March.
How Long Will Front-Running Tariff Inventories Supply Shelves?
Yesterday, I asked How Long Will Front-Running Tariff Inventories Supply Shelves?
I concluded about a month on average. Factoring in today’s trade data add another few weeks. Click on above link for details.
April 27, 2025: Shipping Collapse: Port Workers and Truckers Wait for the Ships to Come In
Orders have been cancelled, but the primary impacts are not felt yet.
Addendum
Not Sure how GDPNow estimated gold today.
There is no breakdown on the advance report. If it threw the entire trade deficit as regular imports, its GDP estimate is probably too low. But it could go the other way.
What a great show! Let’s keep those tariffs on as long as possible so we can see the results.
Here is one positive result: tariff revenue in April increased to $15.9 billion in April from $9.6 billion in March.
Of course Trump claimed that we were pulling in $2 billion a day. Then on April 14, he said, “Now we’re making $3 billion a day.” lol!
Offsetting this extra tariff revenue will be decreasing tax revenues, as companies begin cutting back and laying workers off.
The USA is a dumpster fire. I can’t believe foreign investors are dumb enough to buy US Treasuries at anything less than a 5% interest rate. Somewhere north of 6% is where the numbers even begin to make sense.
If the figure comes in negative Trump will howl and fire people at BEA for “fake news”
A couple years ago from Q4 2021 into Q1 of 2022, there was a 2-quarter “technical recession” (negative GDP) driven by trade shifts, but not supported by rising unemployment.
The doomsayers were calling “recession, recession” and the censorship-industrial complex was ignoring or denying it.
Will we see the same play repeated here, but with all the roles reversed?
What data are you looking at?
There was a one quarter minor negative in 2022 from the huge GDP increase at the end of 2021. Where was 2 quarters? https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
FRED.stlouisfed.gov
Real GDP.
Our data agree. Q4 of 21 was peak, Q1 and Q2 of 2022 were originally both negative in the initial reporting.
So only one quarter of GDP negative growth (from a really big high)? So not even a “technical recession”?
Especially considering the unemployment rate during this period was 4% or less?
Doesn’t sound to me like we’re looking at the data the same way. Economic vs. political bias, maybe?
If you want higher real gDp, then you drive the banks out of the savings business.
That’s why we a not currently in a recession.
You see, economies have been run in reverse.
It’s astonishing how stupid economists are. All monetary savings originate within the system. And the bankers compete for the deposits that they already own.
If you drive the banks out of the savings business, it doesn’t reduce the size of the payment’s system. The 1966 Interest Rate Adjustment Act is the paradigm.
Banks don’t lend deposits. An increase in bank-held savings reduces GDP. But C-19 is different. There’s been a “flight to liquidity”. The ratio of DDs to TDs has doubled. There will be no recession
The ‘Brave New World’ post WWII promise of Economic Globalization, is coming apart at the seams. There are $Trillions of debt reasons why.
The leading benefactor of Economic Globalization has realized that Globalization comes at an unsustainable, exponential increasing cost of debt and trade imbalance.
Enters a new contrarian idea to counter the debt. Certainly, the post WWII Globalization experiment can ‘sustain forever!’, is yelled from the mountain tops (and blogs). Certainly.
Sadly, there is no solution to the debt. It is too late. I wish I had better news, but it is not 1975.
That’s a Dart that Hit the board!
We could start by putting our Politicians on a “Budget”. One thing was made clear recently, by that Venezuelan Trip, and that’s there spending habits do not take into the fact that it’s “Taxpayer’s Money” that’s paying for this type of stupidity.
Put up for a Vote by the People, and it goes Down in Flames!!!
But,
Put up for a Vote by the People, if they should have small and extremely transparent Budgets, and it Wins in a Landslide!!!
JS…
The contribution for net imports in the gdpnow estimate is -4.05%. Contrast that to an average of -2.2% for 2024. More winning.
The big question is whether all the inventory that was ordered to front-run the tariffs is actually going to get sold, now that the rest of the economy is crashing…
Everything might be on sale in a few months, tariffs or no.
The golden age sure looks like the turden age.
Republican town halls become violent. No one wants to talk about the MAGA on MAGA hate, too taboo.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/republican-town-halls-anger-protests-greene-grassley-49a64597
But it is a “beautiful” negative 1.5%. Trumpanomics reality.
An Executive Order abolishing the BEA – lol.
Or that only absolute values may be reported (no negatives. -1.5 becomes 1.5). Think of the DOGE savings not having to print all of those extra dashes.