US: Advance goods trade balance down to $68.2bn in April – Nomura

Analysts at Nomura note that the US advance estimate of the goods trade deficit was $68.2bn in April (Nomura: $69.8bn, Consensus: $71.0bn), down $0.4bn from $68.6bn in March.

Key Quotes

“Goods exports declined slightly after a strong increase in March. Although we had expected goods imports to rebound after an unexpected decline in March, goods imports fell $1.1bn (down 0.5% m-o-m) from the March estimates. In addition, advance retail inventories rose solidly by 0.6% m-o-m while wholesalers’ inventories were flat in April, pointing to some weakness in the month.”

“GDP tracking update: Incoming data on the advance goods trade balance suggest a narrower-than-expected goods trade balance for April. Moreover, in the BEA’s second estimate of GDP, inventory investment came in weaker than we expected. This implies more of an increase in inventory investment in Q2. Thus, we raised our Q2 real GDP tracking estimate by 0.1pp to 3.5% q-o-q saar.”