JP Morgan Chase & Co. has recently updated its outlook for the U.S. economy in 2021, becoming the first major Wall Street investment bank to downgrade its first-quarter GDP growth forecast to negative. JP Morgan stated that it expected the US economy to contract by 1% in the first quarter of 2021 from a year earlier, after growing 2.8% in the fourth quarter of this year, largely because of the rebound in the epidemic and the stalemate in the US fiscal stimulus talks. The economy will then grow by 4.5% in the second quarter and 6.5% in the third quarter, boosted by the gradual distribution of vaccines. JP Morgan had previously predicted that the U.S. economy would continue to grow after turning positive in the fourth quarter, which is now the mainstream view of Wall Street investment banks. The current market average expectation is that real GDP will grow at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4% in the fourth quarter, 3.1% in the first quarter and 3.3% in the second quarter. But given that the forecasts of many investment banks are ahead of the latest round of lockdowns in the US and Europe, it is expected that more investment banks will lower their US GDP forecasts for the next two quarters and raise their long-term forecasts.