The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker, which has won praise for being an accurate read on economic growth ahead of the Bureau of Economic Analysis' first estimate for gross domestic product, has some bad news for the recessionistas: first-quarter GDP is expected to grow at a 2.5% clip.
After Tuesday's wholesale inventories report, the Atlanta Fed's tracker increased its estimate to 2.5% from 2.2%, as a smaller-than-expected increase in inventories in December decreased the expected drag on growth in the coming quarter.
This will most likely bring down future revisions to fourth-quarter GDP, which JPMorgan expects will land at a paltry 0.3%.
Now, as we've said time and again, we can all agree that US economic growth may be underwhelming, choppy, and, frankly, disappointing.
But calls that we're seeing an outright contraction are simply not based on the available data.
