QE Screwed Up GDP Reporting?

The idea that winter is responsible for bad GDP data is ludicrous. Winter is not a new thing, it comes once a year, usually around the same time, and varies in intensity from year to year. In recent years, however, first quarter GDP has been terrible, way off the annual growth rate. An explanation may lie how data is being filtered through the government's seasonal adjustments:

...non-oil construction, exports, and defence procurement. Ever since the start of 2010, spending in these categories has consistently collapsed in the first three months of the year only to rebound in the subsequent nine months. The difference in average annualised growth rates is a whopping 20 percentage points.

Retail data may also be FUBAR. Here's how retail data looks without government adjustements:

Raw data is always the best.

The bigger question is what changed in 2010? The biggest change was QE.

FTAlphaville: Another lingering cost of the bubble: weirdly seasonal GDP data?