"The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2017 is 3.2 percent on January 3, up from 2.8 percent on December 22," the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta announced on Wednesday.

Key quotes

The forecast of real consumer spending growth increased from 2.9 percent to 3.3 percent after this morning's Manufacturing ISM Report On Business from the Institute for Supply Management, while the forecast of real private fixed-investment growth increased from 7.9 percent to 8.9 percent after the ISM report and this morning's construction spending release from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The model's estimate of the dynamic factor for December—normalized to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1 and used to forecast the yet-to-be released monthly GDP source data—increased from 0.44 to 1.50 after the ISM report.

The forecast of the contribution of net exports to fourth-quarter real GDP growth fell from -0.46 percentage points to -0.60 percentage points after the Census Bureau's Advance Economic Indicators release on December 28.