Over the weekend I posted this: US refiners face weakening gasoline demand, 1st time in 5 years
Goldman Sachs have weighed in now on the data that shows implied gasoline demand at its the lowest since February 2012
- Such an "implied demand ... decline has only occurred in four periods since 1960 during which time PCE contracted"
- "to achieve the 5.9% decline suggested by the weekly data, our model requires PCE to contract 6%, in other words, a recession."
Zero Hedge are carrying much more detail on the Goldman Sachs response to the data, saying "Goldman chooses to ignore the data", GS concluding (bolding mine):
- Looking forward, we reiterate our outlook for strong global demand growth in 2017 and view the recent US gasoline builds as reflective of transient regional shifts in gasoline supply instead. Given our outlook for strong consumer spending in 2017, we believe that US gasoline demand growth will remain resilient this year at 60 kb/d, albeit below last year's 150 kb/d growth because of higher prices. From a global perspective, these declines remain modest, especially compared to the 510 kb/d 2016 demand growth from the 40 countries we track.
