Now that the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has released its third estimate of GDP in the first quarter of 2012, we can now officially project where U.S. GDP for the second quarter of 2012 will be when it is nearly finalized three months from now!
Our chart below shows the forecast, expressed in terms of the inflation-adjusted chained U.S. dollars of 2005:
Going by our preferred Modified Limo forecasting technique, we see a 50% probability that real GDP in 2012-Q2 will be over $13,572.5 billion, and a 50% probability that it will be under that level.
We'll also give the following odds that it will be between the indicated values (again, in terms of constant 2005 U.S. dollars):
- A 68.2% probability of being between $13,367.7 billion and $13,649.9 billion.
- A 95.0% probability of being between $13,226.6 billion and $13,790.9 billion.
- A 99.7% probability of being between $13,085.5 billion and $13,932.0 billion.
Looking at our forecast for 2012-Q1 from three months ago, where we had forecast that GDP in the first quarter of 2012 would be finalized at or near a mid-range value of $13,508.8 billion in terms of 2005 U.S. dollars, we were off the BEA's third (and for now, final) estimate of $13,491.4 billion by 0.13%.