GDPNow Reaches 3.2% SAAR

GDPNow rose from 2.5% on 10/1 to 3.2% on 10/8 (q/q AR), on the basis of auto sales and excluding the employment situation.

Source: Atlanta Fed, accessed 10/8/2024.

This is what some of the nowcast/tracking rates show.

Figure 4: GDP (bold black), Summary of Economic Projections updated from 3rd release (inverted green triangle), GDPNow as of 10/8 (open blue square), NY Fed now broadcast 9/20 (red triangles), St. Louis Fed news now broadcast on 10/4 (pink x), Goldman Sachs tracking from 10/8 (orange +), FT-Booth from 9/14 pronounced on the third release (square green), all in bn.Ch .2017$ SAAR. The rates are calculated by multiplying the growth rate by GDP rates, except for the Survey of Professional Forecasters. Source: BEA 2024Q2 version 3/annual update, Atlanta Fed, NY Fed, Philadelphia Fed, Federal Reserve September 2024 SEP and author’s calculations.

With 22 days before the 2024Q3 release (October 30), the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is about as accurate as the Bloomberg consensus, at least in the pre-pandemic days. Here is DeutscheBank’s 2019 comparison.

Source: Luzzetti, et al. “Tracking GDP,” Deutsche Bank US Economic Perspectives, 24 July 2019.

The NY Fed nowcast has been heavily revised, so the MAE numbers shown above are no longer relevant.

Ideally, Polymetrics puts the odds of a negative 2024Q3 advance at 2% as of 1:14 CT.


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