Andrew Duguay, Senior Economist, Prevedere presented an Economic Forecast to over 60 business leaders in Northeast Ohio, part of the EDGE Executive Forum Series sponsored by BNY Mellon and KPMG. Each year, EDGE presents a different take on economic forecasting to give our members new tools and data for decision making in the coming months. This is especially important in times of increased volatility and rapid global change. While we have used top-ranked economists from manufacturing, banking, traditional economists and investment strategists, this is the first time EDGE presented an economist that marries traditional economic indicators to the vast amounts of data sets (Big Data) available through countless sources: this is where predictive analytics meets The Beige Book. The key takeaway that Andrew presented are that we’re seeing growth signals for 2019 just not as strong as past year and we are likely at or near the peak of this economic cycle. Some of the Challenges for 2019 are rising interest rates and skilled labor. Take a look at this short article by Andrew Duguay published in Forbes to better understand his perspective.