A customer shops for home improvement products at a Home Depot store in Chicago, Illinois, the United States, in this file photo. The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter as the government Friday slashed its gross domestic product estimate to show GDP shrinking at a 0.7 percent annual rate instead of the 0.2 percent growth pace it estimated last month. Weak data on consumer sentiment and factory activity in the midwest on Friday suggested that while the economy has pulled out of its first-quarter soft patch, the growth pace was modest early in the second quarter. SD-Agencies