Following today's disappointing consumer spending data, we forecast that a downward revision to the Atlanta Fed's most recent 1.0% Q1 GDP forecast was imminent...
Atlanta Fed to revise its Q1 GDP lower once more after Personal Consumption disappointment
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 31, 2017
As University of Michigan's Richard Curtin writes, "Democrats expect an imminent recession, higher unemployment, lower income gains, and more rapid inflation, while Republicans anticipate a new era of robust growth in incomes, job prospects, and lower inflation. It is a rare situation that combines increasing optimism, which promotes spending, and rising uncertainty which makes consumers more cautious spenders."
With the market red on a Friday ahead of a new "merger Monday", and the state of a new "mutual fund reallocation quarter", something was due to snap, and sure enough moments ago TradeStateion announced that while equities and options trading is available, CME is down for futures trading.
It was not immediately clear if this was systemic, and exchanges would announce self-help against the CME momentarily, or is the result of a single busted data feed.
The good news - another 'soft' survey data item inches to a new post-Trump high as Chicago PMI rises to 57.7 - highest since Jan 2015. However, the bad news is that exuberant hope is not translating into hard reality as the employment sub-index collapsed into contraction.
The 57.7 print beat expectations of a modest decline to 56.9, but the employment component crashed from 57.7 to 49.9 - into contraction.
Business barometer rose at a faster pace, signaling expansion
It may be the fastest transition from a "hawkish" to "dovish" stance by a Fed talking head in history, after New York Fed President Bill Dudley went from "it is important not to overreact to every short-term wiggle in financial markets" and predicting "gradual rate hikes for the rest of the year" yesterday after the close, to "the Fed is in no rush to hike" in an interview with Bloomberg this morning.