The economy will be weaker than anticipated because housing is weak, highly leveraged and has never been such a big part of the economy.
Even telecommunications may not be as weak as anticipated.
Reuters/Andrea Comas Updated at 3.30pm BST 3.15pm BST Some commentary on the eurozone consumer confidence figures from Annalisa Piazza at Newedge Strategy: The outcome is weaker than anticipated and it marks the weakest reading since August 2009, when the euro area was in a deep recessionary mode.
"Demand was a lot weaker than anticipated at the beginning of the year," Mr. Rinehimer said.
Also, recent labor market indicators have been weaker than anticipated," the Fed said before Mr. Bernanke's news conference.
Both reports, released this week, were much weaker than anticipated, and presage an autumn and winter of falling prices.
Because the growth of potential output has slowed in major economies since the crisis, future trend growth may be weaker than anticipated".
Europe was weaker than anticipated primarily because customers in Scandinavia and Britain held back purchases, the chief financial officer, Mark Garrett, said in a conference call.
"Sales in January — the smallest-volume month of the year — were weaker than anticipated," said Terry J. Lundgren, chairman, president and chief executive of Macy's, in a statement.
Nokia of Finland, the No. 1 maker of mobile phones, said that while it might surpass its quarterly profit target, revenue was weaker than anticipated, with network sales expected to drop 25percentt.
