Core Viewpoint - The founder of Andersen Capital Management, Peter Andersen, suggests that the contraction of the U.S. economy should not come as a surprise, despite market reactions indicating otherwise [1] Group 1 - The current economic contraction in the U.S. is viewed as predictable by industry experts [1] - Market behavior reflects a sense of surprise regarding the economic contraction, which is inconsistent with expert analysis [1] - The ongoing negotiations by Trump to gain market acceptance of his tariff policies complicate modeling and forecasting efforts [1] Group 2 - The difficulty in making reasonable predictions leads the market to often adopt a pessimistic outlook [1]

Group 1 - The core point of the article is that copper futures in New York have seen a significant decline of 6.5% due to the contraction of the U.S. economy in the first quarter, marking the first decline since 2022 with a recorded rate of -0.3%, which is the lowest since the second quarter of 2022 [1]

Core Viewpoint - The U.S. economy contracted for the first time since 2022 in Q1, primarily due to a surge in imports and weakened consumer spending, reflecting the impact of Trump's trade policies [1] Economic Performance - The preliminary data shows that the annualized quarterly GDP for Q1 shrank by 0.3%, significantly lower than the average growth rate of approximately 3% over the past two years [1] - Net exports negatively impacted GDP by nearly 5 percentage points [1] Consumer Spending - Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economy, grew by only 1.8%, marking the weakest performance since mid-2023 [1] Business Investment - Business equipment spending was a highlight in the report, with an annualized growth rate of 22.5% [1]