US advance March goods trade balance -125.3B vs -106.3B expected

• Prior was -106.5B
• Exports $169.3 (+11.4B m/m)
• Imports $294.6B (+30.3B)

This is the worst reading on record by far and a big miss. The US dollar US Dollar The US dollar, (symbol $, code USD) is the fiat currency of the United States of America (USD) and the most widely traded currency globally. It was introduced into the US in the late 18th Century, with paper notes not being distributed until the following century. The US dollar, also informally known as the greenback, is the world’s most foremost reserve currency, due in large part to the importance of the US economy on the world stage. Once backed by gold (in the 1900’s), the USD is now a purel The US dollar, (symbol $, code USD) is the fiat currency of the United States of America (USD) and the most widely traded currency globally. It was introduced into the US in the late 18th Century, with paper notes not being distributed until the following century. The US dollar, also informally known as the greenback, is the world’s most foremost reserve currency, due in large part to the importance of the US economy on the world stage. Once backed by gold (in the 1900’s), the USD is now a purel Read this Term is benefiting from financial flows but trade will be a big drag in Q1. On Thursday we get the advance GDP report and this is a reason to expect near-zero growth.

Some of this is balanced out by the US services trade surplus but looking further out, given widening US growth differentials over Europe and the ongoing improvement against others as well, this could widen further. Eventually, it will be a big drag on the dollar but it's not the focus now. That's a lot of dollars leaving the US.

We will get the final Atlanta Fed GDPNow estimate for Q1 shortly. This will be a drag on the +0.4% estimate but it may be balanced by higher March wholesale inventories.