Following today’s retail sales numbers, the GDPNow forecast fell to 1.9% with real final sales at 1.1%

The GDPNow Forecast took another dive today.

Latest forecast: 1.9 percent — March 14, 2018

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2018 is 1.9 percent on March 14, down from 2.5 percent on March 9. After yesterday’s Consumer Price Index release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and this morning’s retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau, the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth fell from 2.2 percent to 1.4 percent.

Real Final Sales

Real Final Sales is the bottom-line estimate of GDP. That GDPNow forecast sits at 1.1%. On February 1, it was 4.1% with the Nowcast at a whopping 5.4%.

At that time I said “Take the under, way under” (in reference to a sports betting over-under line).

I believe GDPNow has messed up ISM modeling. I discussed this at least twice before, most recently on March 7 in Another GDPNow ISM Spike Fades where I shared some Emails with Pat Higgins, creator of GDPNow.