US Q4 GDP Growth Looks Set To Match Or Exceed Q3’s Strong Pace
TMC Research’s final nowcast for next week’s fourth-quarter GDP report (scheduled for release on Jan. 30) anticipates an acceleration in economic activity to a strong 3.6% annual increase.
The sharp upward revision from the previous estimate on Dec. 10 (“Slower Growth, But No Recession: US Q4 GDP Nowcast”) should be viewed cautiously. As always with nowcasts and forecasts, there’s a wide range of uncertainty around the point estimate. But the fact that a wide range of published economic data that’s used to generate the nowcast indicates a strong pace of growth for Q4 suggests that recession risk is low and US output ended 2024 with a vigorous tailwind.
The common theme for TMC Research’s Q4 GDP nowcasts over the past two months: economic growth remained solid in the final quarter of 2024. The only difference in today’s update vs. previous estimates is a robust upgrade in the rate of increase. Although the point forecast should be taken with a grain of salt, the sharp upward revision vs. recent Q4 estimates implies that US growth may be on track to post a strong increase in next week’s report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
TMC Research’s GDP nowcast model uses the following data sets:
· US consumer price index (inflation)
· Unemployment rate
· Real personal consumption expenditures
· Industrial production
· Non-farm private payrolls
· Manufacturing and trade industries sales
· Real personal income
· Net exports
· Housing starts
· New single family home sales
· Wholesale inventories
· Construction spending
· Factory orders
· Retail sales
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