Bloomberg Ticker Almanac

Research evidence excerpt

Bloomberg Ticker Almanac

Global FoundationM

Global Macro Strategy

Bloomberg Consensus Year-Ahead Forecasts

This measure tracks daily revisions to Bloomberg consensus one-year-ahead forecasts for

key macro variables, including real GDP growth, CPI inflation, the unemployment rate, and

the budget balance. By focusing on a rolling year-ahead horizon rather than a single

calendar-year estimate, the series are designed to show how economist expectations

evolve through time in a way that is more comparable across dates and countries.

Use cases

Investors use these series to monitor revision momentum in the macro outlook and to

distinguish changes in consensus from the level of the forecast itself. Rates and FX

strategists can compare growth and inflation revisions across countries when interpreting

curve repricing, central-bank expectations, and relative-currency moves. The series are

also useful for event studies around data releases and policy meetings, for judging how

quickly economists incorporate new information, and for identifying where market pricing

may be moving ahead of or lagging the consensus.

Calculation methodology

We use Bloomberg survey consensus forecasts for the annual macro variables included in

the Almanac. To construct a rolling one-year-ahead measure, we linearly interpolate

between adjacent calendar-year forecasts based on the share of the next twelve months

falling in each year. This blends the current-year and next-year consensus forecasts in a

way that reflects the remaining portion of the current year and the corresponding portion

of the following year. The resulting series is a smooth daily one-year-ahead forecast

measure that avoids mechanical discontinuities around calendar-year roll dates and