In this course, the class will carry out a real-time forecast of the U.S. economy and explore its implications for the bond and stock markets. The course will build upon principles of both macro- and micro-economics. It will provide an introduction to the work done by business economists and the techniques they use. Students will become familiar with the database looking for relationships between key economic variables, and studying movements in interest rates over the period 1960-present. The class will be divided into teams of two students with each team choosing a particular aspect of the economy to forecast. The class will also work with various leading indicators of economic activity and will prepare forecasts of the key components of gross domestic product and other important variables. A formal presentation of the economic with invited guests from the Wall Street investment world will take place. To put forecasting exercise in context, there will be class discussions of business cycles, credit cycles, long waves in inflation and interest rates and the impact of the Internet on the economy and the stock market.