The US economy shrank by 6.2% in 2008 fourth quarter, which is far higher than the consensus estimates of leading analysts. The huge drop is due to the dwindling exports which went into negative territory in the fourth quarter, and also due to the increasing job losses across sectors. The continuous blockage of fund flow to the productive sectors of the economy, due to the ongoing financial crisis has complicated matters. Leading analysts fear that the 2009 first half could see far more severe negative growth in almost all the major sectors including automobiles / engineering / software etc.