The Global Strategy Team at TD Securities (TDS) offers a brief preview of Thursday's key release of the Advance first-quarter US GDP report, due later during the early North American session.

Key Quotes:

“We now expect the first estimate of Q1 GDP growth to register a meaningful deceleration to 1.2% q/q AR (consensus: 2.0%) following a solider, above-trend 2.6% expansion in Q4. We had initially projected output to have increased by 2.3% for Q1, but Wednesday's advanced indicators for March pointed to a larger-than-expected drag from inventories. We continue to expect the US consumer to have acted as a major positive driver of economic activity. However, recent downward revisions to Q1 retail sales data may temper the pace of spending.”