WASHINGTON (AP) – After struggling in the final three months of 2015, the U.S. economy is thought to be rebounding in the current quarter, though not as strongly as most analysts had once expected.
On Friday, when the Commerce Department issues its third and final estimate of growth for the October-December quarter, it’s expected to say the economy expanded at a 1 percent annual rate. That would be the same estimate it made a month ago and would amount to just half the 2 percent annual growth in the July-September period.
For the current January-March quarter, many economists foresee growth as measured by the gross domestic product – the total U.S. output of goods and services – accelerating to a 2 percent rate. But some analysts have been downgrading their estimates of late, reflecting some weaker-than-expected economic data.
Analysts at forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers, for example, on Thursday reduced their forecast of first-quarter GDP growth to a 1.5 percent annual rate after the release of a weak report on new orders for long-lasting manufactured goods. Those orders dropped 2.8 percent in February.
That decline was seen as a sign that the nation’s manufacturing sector is still struggling with weakness overseas and a strong dollar, which has made American-made products more expensive in foreign markets.