Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, April 30th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. Our top stories so far.

The U.S. economy shifted into reverse in the first three months of the year as preparations for tariffs weighed on GDP figures.

It was the first GDP contraction in nearly three years.

The initial estimate of Q1 GDP showed the economy contracted in an annual pace of negative 0.3%

compared with 2.4% growth in Q4 and weaker than the 0.2% rise expected.

The drop in real GDP in Q1 reflected in

imports, which was telegraphed in yesterday's March trade figures, which saw the U.S. trade

deficit balloon. On the other side were increases in investment, consumer spending, and exports.

Economist Ernie Tedeshi says this report is almost exactly what an otherwise healthy economy

looks like anticipating, but not yet directly hurt by tariffs. Consumer durable spending collapses.

Services are fine for the moment. Businesses get as many imports as they can and stock up their

inventories. Odds of a U.S. recession on Polly Market surged above 70%, the highest they've

been since just after Liberation Day, and up from around 20% of the start of March. But real final

sales to private domestic purchasers, which is sometimes known as core GDP, and the sum of consumer

spending and gross private fixed investment, increased at a 3% rate.

That's a touch higher than in Q4.

Robin Brooks of the Brookings Institute says,

We're living through a huge natural experiment.

This is tariff front running as firm's stockpile.

Also on the bright side, the Fed's favorite inflation gauge cooled more than expected in March.

The March core PCE price index was flat versus consensus of up 0.1% and a 0.5% rise in February

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