Sage Advice Quarterly Market Review 2Q2002

The latest round of economic data is enough to make a schizophrenic cry. According to the Commerce Department’s advance reading on GDP, the economy staged a rip-roaring advance in the first quarter, growing at a 5.8% annual rate. By the standards embedded in the consensus forecast earlier in the year, that was indeed exceptionally impressive and appeared to debunk the anemic recovery scenario so widely embraced at the time. But just as the champagne was about to flow, some downbeat numbers coaxed Chicken Little and his army of doomsayers out of the woodworks.