Apologies for posting late today. Was in Valley of Fire State Park today, and the light was too good to take a break for posting.

Both the Atlanta Fed GDPNow and the FRBNY Nowcast updated their GDP assessments today. Let’s take a look.

GDPNow Latest forecast: 2.5 percent — December 22, 2016

gdpnow-2016-12-23a

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2016 is 2.5 percent on December 22, down from 2.6 percent on December 16. The forecasts of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures and real intellectual property products investment growth increased modestly after this morning’s GDP and personal income outlays reports from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). These were offset by modest declines in the forecasted contributions to growth from residential, nonresidential equipment and inventory investment after the aforementioned BEA releases, this morning’s advance manufacturing report from the U.S. Census Bureau, and yesterday’s existing-home sales release from the National Association of Realtors.

Nowcast Highlights December 23, 2016

  • The FRBNY Staff Nowcast stands at 1.8% for both 2016:Q4 and 2017:Q1.
  • This week’s news had no impact on either the Q4 or the Q1 nowcast.
  • Small negative contributions from personal income data were offset by small positive contributions from new single family houses sold.

nowcast-2016-12-23a

I believe the models are likely to converge lower as they did last quarter.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock