Weekly Market Commentary 05/20/2016

As positive data piles up, the economy’s first-quarter swoon is becoming a fading memory. To be sure, the jury is still out as to how much of the earlier slowdown reflects measurement problems rather than an actual weakening of fundamentals. But one of the more upbeat byproducts of incoming data is that they are not only signaling a decent second-quarter rebound in activity, they are also revising up older data. The collective impact of these upward revisions will become more fully apparent on May 27, when the Commerce Department releases its second-estimate of GDP for the first quarter. At this juncture, it appears that the measly 0.5% growth rate originally reported will be bumped up, bringing it closer to 1%. That’s still pretty awful, but does move the economy further away from recession territory.