(New York)

New data emerging today is for the first time showing the scale of the devastation that has occurred to the US economy. Industrial production fell 5.4% in March, the worst fall since 1946. Headline retails sales fell a whopping 8.7%. Both data points were worse than economists predicted.

FINSUM: What is really worrying here is that large parts of the US were not even shutdown until the very end of March. This means April’s numbers are likely to be a complete washout. Judging by indexes, this scared markets.