Atlanta Fed Upgrades US GDP Forecast to 5.4%

August 1, 2018 Share Print 0

Economic growth is expected to continue at a rapid pace in the third quarter, according to a very preliminary forecast from the Atlanta Fed.

The central bank district estimates that GDP will increase 5 percent for the July-to-September period, according to an update posted Wednesday.

If the forecast is accurate, it will come on top of a strong 4.1 percent second quarter that was buoyed by a jump in consumer and business spending. President Donald Trump boasted Friday that growth would go “a lot higher” even though many economists, including at the Fed, expect the economy to moderate in 2019 and beyond.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now forecast, however, has its skeptics. The tracker often starts off optimistic early in the quarter then cools as more data flow in. In the first quarter, the indicator at one point showed 5.4 percent growth in a quarter where GDP rose just 2.2 percent.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.