We are at the beginning of the quarter, but the Atlanta Fed’s GDP for the 3rd quarter falls to +1.3% against +2.1% last year

Earlier in the day – and for good order – the Atlanta Fed announced its estimate of growth in the 3rd quarter according to its model. After starting at 2.1% – after the -0.9% drop in Q2 – the 2nd estimate for Q3 fell to 1.3%.

In their own words:

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2022 is 1.3% on August 1, compared to 2.1% on July 29. Following this morning’s manufacturing ISM business report from the Institute for Supply Management and the construction spending report from the US Census Bureau, the nowcast for real growth in personal consumption expenditure in the third quarter and real growth growth in gross private domestic investment fell from 2.5% and -1.4%, respectively, to 1.5% and -2.1%, respectively.

As more and more data is fed into the model, the changes tend to be less pronounced, but the model “is what it is”.

In the 2nd quarter when most economists were above 0.0% for their GDP estimates (0.5% estimate), the Atlanta Fed was at -1.2% (vs -0.9%). They therefore won the neighborhood model award.

PS. The New York Fed stopped making guesses in the second quarter and sent its modeling to the garage for repair (or at least stopped publishing it weekly). .