Does a report of low quarterly GDP results impact short term stock market returns going forward? Obviously GDP reports vary quarter to quarter and go through ebbs and flows - completely normal and expected. If a report is in the lowest quartile of results, how does that impact results? We just had one of those "low" reports April 28, 2016. (0.5%)An analysis of 68 years of data shows that stock market returns 3 months after the bottom quartile of GDP reports is announced do not differ significantly from the overall average.An executive summary of the results can be found here.