The decline is likely to be broad-based, with consumption falling at an annualised rate of about 4 per cent and business investment in equipment and software falling at a much sharper pace – about 17.5 per cent annualised, according to estimates by Goldman Sachs.
Housing continued to contract at a brutal rate. Exports are also likely to have declined at an extremely rapid pace, with only a big decline in the (larger) volume of imports preventing a very big drag on growth from trade.
The report will validate the belief that the US economy, which was already weakening before the intensification of the credit crisis in September, stepped down abruptly in the final months of the year.