U.S. recession to ease but industry set to crumble
The worst U.S. recession since World War Two will not give way to growth until the third quarter as an already withered industrial sector retrenches sharply, according to a Reuters poll.
In a troubling sign for the banking sector, which has been crippled by real-estate loans gone bad, house prices will extend their vertiginous decline, albeit at a slower pace.
Home values as measured by the Case/Shiller index, already down by about a third from peaks set in 2006, will fall 17.7 percent over the course of 2009, the poll found. In a January poll, the consensus view was for a 13.1 percent drop.
U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink through to mid-year and then grow a meager 0.1 percent in the third quarter. It will then expand 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter.
The jobless rate will rise to a peak of 9.8 percent in the first quarter of next year from the current 8.5 percent.
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