Quote from Landis82:
First off, 5.4% was what the analysts polled by Reuter's estimated.
Second of all, realistically speaking the number wasn't really -3.8%
Taking into consideration inventory build-up ( which gets counted as "growth" ) the REAL GDP number was actually:
5.1%
That's not far off from market expectations.
I'm conviced that the market may had already priced in the -5.5 expectation and sold off due to internals and resistance levels. And the current chart pattern on the daily $SPX we can expect swings in either direction.