Forecasts are relied upon as a guide to what future outcomes for the economy might be. However, it is also important to estimate what is happening in the economy now or has taken place in the recent past. This is where ‘nowcasts’ come in. In this article, I describe what nowcasting is, why it can be a useful tool for macroeconomists as well as present daily nowcasts of key Australian macroeconomic variables, including GDP growth, inflation and the unemployment rate.