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

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

This is what other nowcasts/tracking estimates are indicating.

(Click on image to enlarge)

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

At 22 days to the 2024Q3 advance release (on October 30), the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow has been about as accurate as the Bloomberg consensus, at least in pre-pandemic days. Here’s DeutscheBank’s 2019 comparison.

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

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

For what it’s worth, Polymetrics places odds of a negative 2024Q3 advance release at 2% as of 1:14 CT.

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