We have recently added a new tool in our economic tool box by subscribing to Now-Casting data. For readers that are familiar with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNOW forecast, Now-Casting takes a similar approach but provides short-term ‘now-casts’ for a variety of countries or regions around the world. In the charts below, we have made diffusion indexes by combining the nine now-casts (Europe, Japan, UK, US, China, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico) and tracking whether each series is higher or lower than it was over the past 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-months. What we find is that broadly speaking this is just the third time since the financial crisis where growth prospects are increasing for a majority of the global economy. And over the past 6-months, we have the broadest participation in economic growth since 2010. Said slightly differently, all nine countries/regions now-casts are higher today than they were six months ago. Since these now-casts use current data to forecast a few months into the future, this actually means that growth through November is as strong and synchronized as it has been on a six month basis since 2010.
(source: www.now-casting.com)
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