After already saying that the coronavirus outbreak will push the US into a recession, Goldman Sachs updated its estimates on Friday and now thinks the fallout could be even worse than it previously expected.
The firm on Friday dramatically cut its US economic forecast and is expecting gross domestic product will decline by 24% in the second quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. A drop of that size would be a record, nearly two-and-a-half times the largest drop of 10% seen in 1958.
"The sudden stop in US economic activity in response to the virus is unprecedented, and the early data points over the last week strengthen our confidence that a dramatic slowdown is indeed already underway," Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius wrote in a Friday note.