Nowcasting

Economic decisions are often made before official data become available. CEIC Nowcasting helps bridge this gap by combining alternative datasets, high-frequency indicators and machine-learning techniques to estimate the current state of the economy in near real time.

Built on CEIC's extensive data platform, the solution integrates information from mobility, consumer spending, trade, surveys, labor markets, industrial activity and other leading indicators to generate forward-looking estimates for GDP, inflation and other key macroeconomic variables.

The result is a timely view of economic momentum that helps users identify inflection points, monitor changing conditions and improve forecasting accuracy across both developed and emerging markets.

Key Facts

• Weekly nowcasts for key macroeconomic indicators.
• Coverage of GDP, inflation, industrial production, retail sales, labor-market indicators and external-sector metrics.
• Machine-learning models powered by high-frequency and alternative datasets.
• Coverage across major developed and emerging economies.
• Point-in-time historical nowcast datasets available for backtesting and model validation.
• Built on CEIC's broader ecosystem of macroeconomic, sectoral and alternative data.

Features & Benefits

• Identify economic turning points earlier by monitoring weekly estimates of economic activity rather than waiting for official releases that often arrive with significant delays.
• Machine-learning driven methodology that combines hundreds of high-frequency economic signals to estimate current economic conditions in real time.
• Comprehensive alternative-data inputs including consumer spending, mobility, e-commerce, freight activity, surveys, labor-market indicators and other leading signals.
• Extensive global coverage providing nowcasts for economies where timely and reliable economic indicators are often limited.
• Point-in-time datasets for rigorous analysis enabling users to backtest forecasting models and evaluate historical nowcast performance without revision bias.
• Integrated with CEIC's broader data universe, allowing users to understand not only the nowcast itself but also the underlying drivers behind changes in economic momentum.
• Updated frequently and systematically, providing a consistent framework for monitoring macroeconomic developments across countries and business cycles.

Relevant Use Cases

• Business-cycle monitoring
  Track changes in growth momentum and identify economic turning points before they appear in official GDP releases.
• Inflation analysis
  Monitor evolving price pressures using weekly inflation nowcasts and underlying high-frequency indicators.
• Macroeconomic forecasting
  Improve forecast accuracy by incorporating real-time estimates of economic activity into forecasting frameworks.
• Investment decision-making
  Support asset allocation, macro trading, rates, FX and equity strategies with earlier visibility into economic developments.
• Economic research
  Assess the drivers of economic momentum using underlying alternative and high-frequency datasets.
• Corporate planning and market intelligence
  Monitor demand conditions, inflation trends and economic risks across key markets to support forecasting and strategic decision-making.