The three major Wall Street indexes were on track to end the week lower, with many economists forecasting that third-quarter GDP will take a hit due to the hurricanes.
Irma was set to hit Florida as early as Saturday, with FEMA warning that parts of Florida could be out of electricity for days, if not longer.
The hurricane, the strongest recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, comes on heels of Harvey, which shut a quarter of U.S. refineries and 8 percent of U.S. oil production.
"Having two major hurricanes strike in one quarter, it is surely going to show up in the GDP," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.
Harvey may end up being the most expensive natural disaster in the United States since 1980, costing $70 billion to $108 billion, according to BofA Merrill Lynch.
The brokerage cut its estimate for third-quarter U.S. GDP growth by 0.4 percentage points to 2.5 percent.
No comments:
Post a Comment