Official Release: Q2 2026 GDP Forecast
Domestic activity remains healthy, but international trade is weighing heavily on the headline.
Last quarter marked an important milestone for Atlas Analytics.
We publicly forecasted 2.0% annualized real GDP growth several weeks before the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its advance estimate. The government’s initial estimate also came in at 2.0%, and the final figure settled at 2.1% following subsequent revisions.
Atlas and the government ultimately arrived at nearly the same answer. The difference is that our forecast was available almost three months before the final estimate.
This is why we are building Atlas: to provide reliable economic intelligence while conditions are still unfolding, rather than months after the underlying activity has occurred.
So, what are we seeing for Q2?
The Q2 Forecast
Atlas Analytics is forecasting 1.95% annualized real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2026.
The headline appears soft, but the components tell a more balanced story.
Within our framework:
Core GDP + Net Exports + Private Inventories = Headline GDP
For the second quarter, Atlas estimates:
Core GDP: +3.18 percentage points
Private Inventories: +0.30 percentage points
Net Exports: -1.52 percentage points
Headline GDP: +1.95%
Core GDP and Private Inventories together contribute approximately 3.48 percentage points of growth. The difference between that figure and our headline forecast comes almost entirely from international trade.
Atlas estimates that Net Exports will subtract approximately 1.52 percentage points from second-quarter growth.
This composition is important. The forecast does not point to broad weakness across the domestic economy. Core activity remains healthy, and businesses continued rebuilding inventories. The primary source of weakness is the trade balance.
That distinction would be difficult to identify from the headline number alone.
What JACK Is Seeing
Over the past year, Atlas has been developing JACK, the Joint Algorithm for Containerized Knowledge.
As we discussed in our recent article, You Don’t Know JACK, JACK uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to monitor activity across major U.S. container ports.
The system identifies container ships and uses computer vision to count containers moving on and off vessels. These observations help Atlas estimate imports, exports, and Net Exports before the official trade statistics become available.
Historically, our models inferred trade activity from related economic indicators. JACK allows us to begin measuring much of that activity directly.
This quarter, the signal is clear. International trade represents the primary drag on second-quarter GDP growth.
There is also some encouraging news. Our data suggest that trade conditions improved modestly during June, indicating that the drag from Net Exports may have started to ease toward the end of the quarter.
That improvement does not offset the weakness recorded earlier in Q2, but it may provide an early indication of where conditions are heading as the third quarter begins.
GDP Is the Score. The Economy Is the Game.
People often ask whether Atlas is a GDP forecasting company. GDP is an important part of what we do, but it is not the end product.
GDP is our benchmark. Economic intelligence is our business.
We forecast GDP because it gives us an objective scorecard. Every quarter, our models are tested against one of the world’s most closely watched economic statistics. That comparison allows our clients and our team to evaluate where the system is performing well and where it needs to improve.
Government statistics eventually capture these changes, but usually after a delay. Atlas is building the infrastructure to observe them as they happen.
Ab Astris ad Terram et Mare
From the stars to the land to the sea.
Atlas signals observe the physical economy across land and sea, using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to measure activity before traditional data becomes available.
At sea, JACK monitors import and export activity at major U.S. ports. On land, Atlas measures economic conditions across states, metropolitan areas, counties, and neighborhoods, providing earlier visibility into growth, market conditions, and valuations.
We are now extending that capability to individual assets, including manufacturing facilities, data centers, logistics hubs, commercial properties, and critical infrastructure. By measuring changes in production, utilization, construction, and activity, Atlas can support investment decisions, underwriting, asset monitoring, and operational planning with intelligence grounded in what is physically happening.
What Comes Next
The second quarter illustrates why the composition of growth matters.
A headline forecast of 1.95% might suggest that the entire economy is losing momentum. Our data point to a different conclusion. Domestic activity remains healthy, inventories are contributing to growth, and international trade accounts for nearly all of the weakness in the forecast.
We can make that distinction because Atlas is moving beyond traditional forecasting inputs and directly observing more of the physical economy.
ICYMI
Last week, Our Founder and CEO Jake Schneider and Aditya Murlidharan, Economic Analytics Fellow, examined whether elevated market valuations extend beyond the technology sector. Their analysis found that the disconnect between equity prices and current economic activity has become increasingly broad-based.