Pooling higher frequency information to obtain an estimate of GDP growth in the current quarter well ahead of official releases can thus be seen as complementary to forecasting. By their nature, indicators based on a large set of monthly or weekly data exploit the information contained in the cross section.
In general, however, they are ill-suited to forecasting the variable of interest beyond a very short horizon (i.e. nowcasting, or at most, I would say, one quarter ahead). I believe, with others, that the construction, utilization, evaluation and revision of models for economic forecasting and policy making is a complex “organic social process”, a process in which subjective judgment often plays an important role.