Mid-Morning Recap: Stocks Rise on Revised Economic Data

Markets have been volatile in the first hour of trading, opening higher after the release of GDP revisions, moving lower with a disappointing business report for the Midwest, and then rebounding after a Consumer Sentiment survey beat expectations.

As of 10:30, the S&P is up 0.51% to 911, the Dow has climbed 0.35% to 8432, and the Nasdaq has followed suit with a 0.42% advance to 1759.

Beginning the day at 8:30 am were revisions to Q1 GDP, which came in at -5.7%.  Markets were looking for a -5.5% reading, so the report is a bit disappointing especially with consumer spending revised down seven-tenths to +1.5%, but the original GDP estimate was -6.1% so it’s at least a step in the right direction.

“All the incoming data suggest that the rate of decline in economic activity is decelerating,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.

“While the slower decumulation of inventories and weaker consumer spending in Q1 have increased the downward risks to Q2 growth, IHS Global Insight still believes that real GDP will contract by only 2% to 3% in Q2, before flattening out in Q3 and growing slightly in Q4,” he added.

The news at 9:45 was less benign, however. The ISM-Chicago Business Barometer, a regional measure used to forecast national output, declined rapidly in May. The index fell from 40.1 to 34.9, against expectations for a 42.0 reading. 

New orders fell almost 5 points to 37.3 in May, well below the 50-level representing growth. Worse, the employment index shed nearly 7 points to 25.0, its second worst reading since records began in 1946.

“This is a weaker than expected report and pokes a big hole in the ‘green shoots’ story that we were starting to see with the strong advance in the April data,” said Ian Pollick from TD Securities.

On the plus side, Consumer Sentiment improved slightly in the revised estimate from Reuters and the University of Michigan. The index moved up to 68.7 in May, up nine-tenths from an estimate two week ago and 3.6 points higher than in April. 

The gain doesn’t come close to matching Tuesday’s Consumer Confidence report from the Conference Board, but any improvement is good news and markets were able to bounce back following its release.