GDP

After the Commerce Department reported the second straight quarter of GDP decline, President Joe Biden spoke Thursday to tout the strong job market and deflect rumors of an impending recession. “That doesn’t sound like a recession to me.”

The decline in the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — followed a 1.6% annual drop from January through March.

The U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of the year, and faces threats from high inflation and rising interest rates, yet economists foresee a return to growth for the rest of 2022 based on the strength of the job market and consumer spending.

Covid-19 pushed 4.7 million people in Southeast Asia into extreme poverty last year and erased 9.3 million jobs, the Asian Development Bank said.

Weekly jobless claims came in slightly less than expected last week and economic growth to end 2021 was slightly better than originally reported.

Economists expect infrastructure push to be one of the key themes of Tuesday’s budget amid signs that investment demand might finally be picking up.

Gross domestic product accelerated at a 6.9% annualized pace in the fourth quarter, well ahead of the 5.5% estimate.

The economic costs of China’s zero-Covid policy is increasingly expected to outweigh its benefits, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley.

Many of the small island states nestled in the Pacific Ocean have had no new cases of the virus for months.

Gross domestic product grew 8.4% between July and September — India’s fiscal second quarter — from a year ago, government data showed.