The growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) is a key indicator of economic activity, but the official estimate is released with a delay. Our GDPNow forecasting model provides a "nowcast" of the official estimate prior to its release.
Recent forecasts for the GDPNow model are available here. More extensive numerical details—including underlying source data, forecasts, and model parameters—are available as a separate spreadsheet.
Latest forecast: 0.9 percent — March 31, 2017
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 0.9 percent on March 31, down from 1.0 percent on March 24. After this morning's personal income and outlays release from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the forecast for first-quarter real consumer spending growth fell from 1.4 percent to 0.8 percent. The forecast of the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth increased from -0.49 percentage points to -0.16 percentage points after Tuesday's Advance Economic Indicators Report from the U.S. Census Bureau.