Q1 GDP revised to negative 5%

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 5.0 percent in the first quarter of 2020 , according to the "second" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 2.1 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "advance" estimate issued last month. In the advance estimate, the decrease in real GDP was 4.8 percent. With the second estimate, a downward revision to private inventory investment was partly offset by upward revisions to personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and nonresidential fixed investment.

Updates to GDP
In the second estimate, first-quarter real GDP decreased 5.0 percent from the fourth quarter, a downward revision of 0.2 percentage point. The revision primarily reflected a downward revision to private inventory investment that was partly offset by upward revisions to PCE and nonresidential fixed investment.

For the fourth quarter of 2019, the percent change in real GDI was revised from 2.6 percent to 3.1 percent based on new fourth-quarter data from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Corporate Profits
Profits from current production (corporate profits with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) decreased $295.4 billion in the first quarter, in contrast to an increase of $53.0 billion in the fourth quarter (table 10).

Profits of domestic financial corporations decreased $67.4 billion in the first quarter, in contrast to an increase of $0.7 billion in the fourth quarter. Profits of domestic nonfinancial corporations decreased $169.5 billion, in contrast to an increase of $53.7 billion. Rest-of-the-world profits decreased $58.6 billion, compared with a decrease of $1.4 billion. In the first quarter, receipts decreased $72.7 billion, and payments decreased $14.2 billion.