The February Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey

The February Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey can be found at this link.

There wasn't much change in the survey results from last month. Also, as seen in the detail, there hasn't been much change for many of the parameters for the last few months.

As I have previously commented, I find it highly notable that there is such a "tight" consensus among the forecasters - especially for the major forecasting categories such as GDP and unemployment.

This is supported by the following from the survey:

"The White House released its economic forecast Thursday, projecting payrolls will increase by an average of just 95,000 a month this year with the unemployment rate averaging 10%. The Council of Economic Advisors expects GDP growth to be about 3% in 2010, in line with the surveyed economists."

This survey also asked respondents to rate the economic performance of Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geithner and President Obama. On a 1-100 scale, President Obama got an average score of 57, Treasury Secretary Geithner got an average score of 60, and Ben Bernanke got an average score of 78.

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I post various economic forecasts because I believe they should be carefully monitored. However, as regular readers of this blog are aware, I do not agree with the consensus estimates or much of the accompanying commentary.



SPX at 1105.38 as this post is written