Atlanta Fed’s Robot Gets Suddenly Skittish About the Economy

Every few days the Atlanta Fed releases an estimate of GDP growth as of that moment. It’s normally in rough agreement with the blue-chip consensus, but not always. Take today, for example:

Two weeks ago, the GDPNow forecast dropped dramatically when the retail trade report for December came out. As it happens, that led to a less accurate forecast, since GDP growth in Q4 of 2018 ended up at 2.6 percent, well above the final GDPNow forecast of 1.9 percent.

But if the GDPNow algorithm got suddenly bearish two weeks ago, it slid into the abyss today: its initial “nowcast” for the first quarter of 2019 has plummeted to 0.3 percent. This is recession territory. You can decide for yourself how seriously to take this, and maybe on Monday we’ll get a sunnier forecast. But if you’re curious about how accurate the GDPNow forecast is, here’s a quick look:

Obviously GDPNow is much more volatile than the actual quarterly estimates from the BEA, but they’re usually in the same ballpark. Sudden spikes up and down are sometimes accurate and sometimes not. On the other hand, the three previous drifts downward to near zero were all missed calls, so maybe this one will be too. Stay tuned.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate