First-quarter gross domestic product was a big disappointment.
The economy grew just 0.2% to start 2015, well below the 1% growth that Wall Street economists were expecting.
But the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker was giving you the number you needed all along.
The Atlanta Fed saw first-quarter GDP rising just 0.1% — right at what the BEA's official number was. (Last Wednesday, the Atlanta Fed saw GDP growth at 0.2%, but this number was revised slightly lower after Friday's durable goods report.)
This GDPNow figure takes in real-time readings on the 13 components that the Bureau of Economic Analysis analyzes when forming its official GDP figures, and the Atlanta Fed says: "As more monthly source data becomes available, the GDPNow forecast for a particular quarter evolves and generally becomes more accurate."
At one point, the Atlanta Fed was forecasting no growth for the first quarter, and while this number moved a bit higher leading up to Wednesday's report, it was consistently more downbeat that Wall Street estimates.
It was also right.
