US economic outlook remains modest at best

The recent run of stronger economic data has led to speculation that the US economy could be poised for a good 2012 after all. This is a remarkable turnaround from August last year when speculation began to mount that the US economy was sliding into recession. But just as we weren't convinced by the recession fears, we're not buying the decoupling story either. We still think the most likely outcome is another year of moderate growth. It now looks like fourth-quarter GDP growth was only about 2.2% and we suspect that growth will be weaker than that in the first quarter. For this year as a whole, we still expect only moderate GDP growth of 1.5%.