Compared to the Wall Street Consensus, which had originally expected Q4 2015 GDP to rise as much as 3% only to admit Q4 was a total bust (and this time not even the weather was to blame) when last Friday the BEA's first estimate of Q4 growth revealed GDP had risen a minimal 0.7% - a number which will be reduced following today's big construction spending miss - the Atlanta Fed's 1.0% pre-announcement estimate seems like a bulls eye.
Which is why the fact that according to the Atlanta Fed's just launched Q1 GDP tracker the US economy will grow another barely above-recession 1.2%, more than 50% below the Wall Street consensus of 2.3%, should be very troubling, as it suggests there will barely be any growth in the quarter in which the 2015 inventory liquidation was supposed to have taken place, and instead the economic weakness will persist well into the year in which the Fed has signalled it will hike rates 4 times, a number which the market which sees just one rate hike in the next 11 months, vigorously disagrees with.
This is what the Altanta Fed said:
The initial GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2016 is 1.2 percent on February 1. The final model nowcast for fourth-quarter real GDP growth was 1.0 percent, 0.3 percentage points above the advance estimate of 0.7 percent released last Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Time for triple seasonal adjustments?