Update: -3.8%…Market Mover Tomorrow:4Q GDP…8:30am EST…

UPDATE: Number came in better than expected, the economy shrank 3.8% in Q4, traders are taking it with a Morton’s shaker of salt since this is the preliminary advance number and subject to revision….but no g’news is good g’news as Gary Gnu knows….

….The Commerce Department on Friday said gross domestic product, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, plummeted at a 3.8 percent annual rate, the lowest pace since the first quarter of 1982, when output contracted 6.4 percent. GDP fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter. These were the first consecutive declines in GDP since the fourth quarter of 1990 and the first three months of 1991.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP contracting 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter. The U.S. economy slipped into recession in December 2007, driven by the collapse of the housing market and resulting global credit crisis….

From Briefing.com:

…Investors now turn their focus to the advance fourth quarter GDP report, which is due tomorrow morning (8:30 AM ET). Given the challenges facing the economy, the consensus forecast calls for a 5.5% annualized fourth quarter decline in GDP.

Anything more than a 5.5% drop and I think the market will sell-off again and after POTUS and Dodd comments on clawbacks of CEO compensation and the ‘shameful’ behavior of bonus -accepting Wall St. Executives, I think we are primed for financials to test the Nov 20 lows…

The markets (and the people) are waiting for the new Administration to step up to the plate on housing and TARP II recapitalization/rescue/split/nationalization of the banking system..

We need certainty of some sort..and the best we can get is a definitive plan from the Obama A Team of Economic Advisers..I suggest they stop waiting on this stimulus to pass and get their TARP/Bank plan out there NOW…

January 29, 2009. Tags: Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Dow, Economy, FEDERAL RESERVE, Finance, Foreclosures, HOLC, Obama Administration, recession, Sheila Bair, TARP, TIMOTHY GEITHNER, Wall St. CITI, citigroup, Economy, FDIC, Finance, Foreclosures, Housing, Labor Department, Obama Administration, Politics, TARP, Unemployment Statistics, Wall St.