Atlanta Fed GDPNow Forecast Spirals Down in Amazing Manner
by Wolf Richter
WolfStreet.com
Mar 8, 2017
Where has all the optimism gone?
The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model, which forecasts GDP growth in the US in the current quarter, picks up data as it is released and changes the forecast in real time. As the quarter advances and as more data is included, it becomes a more accurate predictor, not of actual economic growth, but of GDP as measured in the first estimate for that quarter by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). So now we’re 67 days into the first quarter, and the GDPNow forecast has been spiraling down in an amazing manner for the past nine days.
The model now forecasts GDP growth in Q1 of 1.2% seasonally adjusted annual rate. This means that if the economy continues to grow at this rate for the rest of the year, annual GDP growth would be 1.2%, which would be the worst since the Financial Crisis.
Today’s down-tick from yesterday’s GDPNow forecast of 1.3% growth was caused by the contribution of “inventory investment” to GDP – when inventories rise or fall – as reported this morning by the Census Bureau in its wholesale trade data release. According to this data, the contribution of inventory investment to Q1 growth fell from -0.72 percentage points to -0.79 percentage points.
The Rest…HERE
