Nowcasts are outstripping forecasts. For now.

Figure 1: GDP (bold black), WSJ January mean forecast (blue), CBO December projection (red), SPF median forecast (teal), FT-IGM December forecast (light green triangle, based on GDPNow for Q4), GDPNow of 1/18 (light blue square), NY Fed nowcast (red triangle), all in bn. Ch.2017$ SAAR. Source: BEA 3rd release, CBO, Philadelphia Fed, FT-IGM, Atlanta Fed (1/18), NY Fed (1/12), and author’s calculations.

WSJ, SPF, and FT-IGM forecasts are conditioned all sorts of assumptions specific to the forecasters, while the CBO projection are based on current law. GDPNow and NY Fed nowcast are based on correlations of GDP growth with various economic releases.

More on WSJ survey here.