Investing.com – The Federal Reserve of Atlanta cut its forecast for growth in the U.S. economy for the first quarter of 2016 on Monday on a lower estimate for consumer spending after the release of the personal income and outlays report by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The Atlanta Fed decreased its U.S. Q1 GDP growth estimate to 0.6% from the prior 1.4% forecast published on March 24.
The regional bank explained that the reason for the reduction was because the forecast for real consumer spending growth in the first quarter was reduced to 1.8%, from the prior 2.5%, due to the data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’ report on personal income and outlays.
Furthermore, the Atlanta Fed noted that the forecast for the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth declined from –0.26 percentage points to –0.52 percentage points following this morning's advance report on international trade in goods from the U.S. Census Bureau.