While we wait for Asia to kick off the day's trading here's a bit of a preview of the US Q1 GDP data due on Friday morning (US time)

Its from the Wall Street Journal and it doesn't paint a pretty picture at all.

  • The U.S. economy very likely contracted in the first three months of the year
  • The Commerce Department estimated last month that gross domestic product-the broadest sum of goods and services produced across the U.S.-grew at a paltry 0.2% annual pace in the first quarter. But a batch of data since then suggests output was far weaker, and the agency will release a revised estimate Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
  • The best guess of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal is that GDP fell at a 1% annual pace from January through March.

More at the article, which is ungated: The U.S. Economy's Ugly First Quarter Is About to Look a Lot Worse