President Donald Trump hasn’t yet made his mark on the U.S. economy, despite the euphoria on one side and the dread of the other that greeted his election, said Brian Wesbury, chief economist for First Trust Advisors. Wesbury and his deputy, Bob Stein, are winners of the MarketWatch Forecaster of the Month contest for May.

“We try not to let political emotions affect our macro outlook,” Wesbury said in an interview. “We wait for real policy changes” before changing the forecast.

Read Wesbury’s blog.

“We haven’t had anything yet,” he said.

Sure, Trump enacted a freeze on federal hiring, and he rolled back a few regulations, but the major changes he championed during his campaign have yet to be fulfilled. There’s been no tax cut enacted, federal spending hasn’t changed in any fundamental way, and the major regulatory changes are still a work in progress. Even Obamacare remains in place.

Without major changes, “this is still a ‘plow-horse’ economy” only able to grow about 2%, he said.

But Wesbury said, if Trump gets his way on tax cuts, health care, and deregulation, the economy could grow at a 3% rate.

Opinion Journal: Trump’s Trade Protectionism

The risks are mostly to the upside, Wesbury said. Any fears that Trump would provoke a trade war have dissipated.

Wesbury thinks the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this week, but he doesn’t think it will slow the economy. “A 1% rate is not holding anybody back,” he said.

He’s much more focused on the Fed’s “bloated balance sheet,” which the Fed will start to unwind later in the year. “As long as there’s any excess reserves, I argue that the Fed isn’t actually tight.” And because a monetary policy mistake is practically the only way to knock the economy off its perch, he doesn’t think a recession is in the cards for at least three more years.

Wesbury & Stein’s forecasts Number as reported ISM 56.7% 54.8% Nonfarm payrolls 205,000 211,000 Trade deficit -$43.6 billion -$43.7 billion Retail sales 0.6% 0.4% Industrial production 0.3% 1.0% Consumer price index 0.2% 0.2% Housing starts 1.254 million 1.172 million Durable goods orders -0.8% -0.7% Consumer confidence No forecast 117.9 New home sales 599,000 569,000 *Subject to revisions

Competing against 46 other forecasting teams, Wesbury and Stein had the most accurate forecasts on two of the 10 indicators we tracked in the May contest: The trade deficit and the CPI. Their forecasts on three others — payrolls, durable goods orders, and new home sales — were among the 10 most accurate.

It’s the fifth time Wesbury has won the monthly award that we instituted in 2003 to honor those forecasters who are the most accurate at predicting the economic data that move markets.

The runners-up in the May contest were Sam Coffin of UBS, Ted Wieseman of Morgan Stanley and Michael Feroli of J.P. Morgan Chase. Finally, Spencer Staples of EconAlpha and Michelle Girard’s team at NatWest tied for fifth place.

The forecasts MarketWatch publishes in our Economic Calendar are the median forecasts of the 15 forecasting teams that have done the best in our contest over the preceding 12 months, plus the forecast of the most recent winner of the Forecaster of the Month. Our enhanced consensus is much more accurate than the Bloomberg consensus that’s widely followed.

The economists in our consensus forecast are: Jim O’Sullivan of High Frequency Economics, Spencer Staples of EconAlpha, Ryan Sweet of Moody’s Analytics, Sam Coffin at UBS, Christophe Barraud at Market Securities, James Sweeney’s team at Credit Suisse, Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics, Avery Shenfeld’s team at CIBC, Brian Wesbury and Bob Stein at First Trust, John Silvia’s team at Wells Fargo, Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macro Economics, Stephen Stanley of Amherst Pierpont Securities, Jan Hatzius’s team at Goldman Sachs, Michelle Girard’s team at NatWest Securities, and Gus Faucher at PNC Financial.