A report from the Commerce Department showed on Thursday the U.S. economy contracted as initially estimated in the first quarter of 2020, as an upward revision to nonresidential fixed investment was offset by downward revisions to private inventory investment, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), and exports.

According to the “third” estimate, the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at a 5.0 percent annual rate in the first quarter, as reported in the "second" estimate. This was the biggest drop in GDP since the fourth quarter of 2008

Economists had expected the decline rate to remain unrevised at 5.0 percent.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, the economy expanded by 2.1 percent.

The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter reflected negative contributions from PCE, private inventory investment, exports, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by positive contributions from residential fixed investment, federal government spending, and state and local government spending. Meanwhile. imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, fell.