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1

When SpaceX starts trading, some 'shareholders' will discover they own nothing at all

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Corporate America has been draining the world's water. Matt Damon's new campaign calls on Gap, Starbucks, and Amazon to help give it back

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Current price of oil as of June 12, 2026
FinanceEconomy

How low will GDP go? Atlanta Fed projections for Q2 dip below -40%

By
Lee Clifford
Lee Clifford
and
Anne Sraders
Anne Sraders
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By
Lee Clifford
Lee Clifford
and
Anne Sraders
Anne Sraders
Down Arrow Button Icon
June 26, 2020, 5:17 PM ET

That’s a big number.

While plenty of economists are busy debating the shape of an eventual economic recovery, there’s still the small matter of the second quarter to get through first. And while everyone agrees U.S. GDP is in for a historic drop, there’s still a wide variety of opinions about just how big that drop will be.

One widely watched gauge is the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker, a mathematical model that feeds in new economic data as it is released, and tries to factor in how it will move the overall GDP figure for an upcoming quarter. And as of Thursday June 25, the GDPNow’s estimate for second-quarter GDP was a stunning –46.6%.

However by Friday that had improved somewhat, to –39.5%, based on better than expected consumer spending data. The next GDPNow update will be released on Wednesday July 1.

The tracker does come with a significant caveat. As a note on the site reads, “GDPNow is not an official forecast of the Atlanta Fed. Rather, it is best viewed as a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available data for the current measured quarter. In particular, it does not capture the impact of COVID-19 beyond its impact on GDP source data and relevant economic reports that have already been released.”

Elsewhere on Wall Street, forecasts for the second quarter have careened wildly, ranging from merely terrible to downright catastrophic. Goldman Sachs’s latest prediction is around –33% for the quarter, while the New York Fed’s Nowcast (a similarly real-time GDP tracker) has actually raised its second-quarter estimates to around –16.3%.

While the revised estimates from both the Atlanta Fed and the New York Fed (as well as the improving data) suggest there is light at the end of the tunnel, the second quarter could prove a deep hole to dig out of.

“The good news [is] that we are starting to grow again. The bad news is that we’re starting from an awfully deep hole” that will take a long time to recover from, UBS Global Wealth Management senior economist Brian Rose recently told Fortune.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist Gita Gopinath said at a press briefing on Wednesday, “We are definitely not out of the woods.” The IMF lowered full-year GDP estimates for the U.S., and Gopinath noted, “This is a crisis like no other and will have a recovery like no other.”

One thing’s for sure: Whatever the actual GDP number is, it will certainly make history.

More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:

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  • George Floyd protests force Britain to reckon with its role in slavery, leading some companies to pay reparations
  • This influential crypto CEO warns that hyperinflation will be “the next big problem”
  • Looking to invest in companies that care about equality? This NAACP-backed ETF may be the answer
  • 6 reasons Boeing’s financial picture may be brighter than most assume
About the Authors
By Lee CliffordExecutive Editor
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Lee Clifford is an Executive Editor at Fortune. Primarily she works with the Enterprise reporting team, which covers Tech, Leadership, and Finance as well as daily news and analysis from Fortune’s most experienced writers.

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Anne Sraders
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