Surprise coming tomorrow?
The consensus on US GDP tomorrow is 2.7%, which is a poor number that reflects a drag from delta in the quarter. Estimates range from +0.7% to +5.0% after a 6.7% pace in Q2.
A separate tracker from the Atlanta Fed suggests it could be even worse than the lowest estimates, scraping by with just 0.2% growth, annualized. That’s down from last week’s estimate of 0.5%.
Less government spending and a drop in today’s trade balance data weighed:
After the October 19 GDPNow update and subsequent releases from the US
Census Bureau, the National Association of Realtors, and the US
Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, a decrease in
the nowcast of third-quarter real government spending growth from 2.1
percent to 0.8 percent was slightly offset by an increase in the nowcast
of third-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth from 9.0
percent to 9.3 percent. Also, the nowcast of the contribution of the
change in real net exports to third-quarter real GDP growth decreased
from -1.56 percentage points to -1.81 percentage points.
We will get the advanced number tomorrow at 8:30 am ET. Of course, it will be revised many times before we get a final number.