In our Global Macro Views in February, we highlighted the outlook for a U.S. soft patch, which is now materialising. We expect this soft patch to be fairly short due to positive inventory dynamics, the recent decline in gasoline prices and healthy underlying fundamentals. Our US forecast is above consensus.
Soft Q1 GDP data for China and weaker PMI have cast some doubt over the recovery. We continue to expect a gradual improvement in China, but have lowered our growth forecast for 2013 by 0.2 percentage points to 8.0%.
In the euro area we look for weaker growth than consensus in 2013 at -0.6% (consensus -0.4%). While the PMI should rise from current low levels, improvement will be slow and fragile.
Oil prices have fallen sharply to their lowest levels since summer 2012. This is positive for the advanced economies, and supports the case for a short soft patch.
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