Comments by European commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni
- There's no discussion about an Italian bailout
His headline comment is one that I think many people will have a debate about when interpreting GDP readings in the coming months.
It makes sense to reflect on the quarter-on-quarter reading if you seasonally adjust the data to remove one-off hits like the virus impact.
However, it makes little sense to annualise the quarter-on-quarter reading since you won't get the same virus impact in each and every quarter of the year.
That should put into perspective Goldman Sachs' prediction of a -34% q/q annualised reading for the US economy in Q2, as they are compounding the drop in economic activity by something which may not happen in every quarter.
