The S&P Global Market Insights report showed that GDP grew by 0.2 percentage points in November, an annualized growth rate of 2.6%. Below is a picture of some of the key indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, along with monthly GDP and GDPNow.
figure 1: Nonfarm payrolls included in preliminary benchmark (bold dark blue), using Bloomberg consensus implied levels as of 1/3 (blue+), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), 2017 excluding Transferred personal income $ (bold green), 2017 manufacturing and trade sales $ (black), 2017 consumption $ (light blue), 2017 monthly GDP $ (pink), GDP second release (blue Color bar) and GDPNow for 2023Q4 as of 1/3 (lavender box), all logarithms normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary benchmarksFederal Reserve, BEA 2023Q3 2nd Edition, contains comprehensive revisions, S&P Global/IHS Markit (Nigerian macroeconomic consultant, IHS Markit) (1/3/Released in 2024), Federal Reserve Bank of Atlantaand the author's calculations.
The Bloomberg consensus is for NFP growth of +163,000.
As of today, fourth-quarter GDPNow is at 2.4% (quarter-to-quarter seasonally adjusted growth), S&P Global Market Insight is at 0.9%, and GS is at 1.4%. (As of December 29, the New York Fed’s fourth-quarter interest rate forecast was 2.4% and the St. Louis Fed’s rate was 1.9%.)
