Atlanta Fed: The Crowd’s Q3 GDP Expectations Are Too High

Expectations are in need of a haircut for tomorrow’s preliminary release of the government’s third-quarter US GDP report, according to yesterday’s update of the Atlanta Fed’s unofficial estimate. In contrast with Econoday.com’s consensus forecast for a 1.7% rise in Q3 output, yesterday’s update of the unofficial GDPNow model forecast sees Q3 growth at a tepid 0.8%, down a tick from the bank’s Oct. 20 nowcast of 0.9% and far below Q2’s strong 3.9% rise.

The Atlanta Fed advises: “The model’s nowcast for the contribution of inventory investment to third-quarter real GDP growth declined from -1.9 percentage points to -2.0 percentage points after [yesterday’s disappointing] report on durable goods manufacturing from the U.S. Census Bureau.”