Market to discover just how rotten the start to 2015 was

27-Apr (MarketWatch) — The U.S. economy suffered a big letdown in the first three months of 2015. Now it’s time to find out if warmer weather resuscitates growth — just like it did last year.

A spate of reports this week will yield the first clues on whether a second-quarter rebound is underway, including number of autos sold in April and a trio of surveys that tell us what consumers and business leaders think about the economy.

The government will also provide the first official look at how the economy performed in the first quarter, but Wall Street is likely to look past what almost certainly will be a poor but backward-looking number. The overriding consensus is that a slew of onetime factors including harsh weather was a drag on gross domestic product early in the year.

…History never repeats itself exactly, however, and the U.S. economy probably won’t follow exactly same path as it did in 2014, when GDP roared back with consecutive gains of 4.6% and 5% after a disastrous first quarter.

The spike in the dollar and the plunge in oil prices since last summer will see to that.

[source]

PG View: The little bit of April data we’ve seen already has been less than encouraging.

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