Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. Some systems may support the transmission of a predicted negative acknowledgment (NACK) indication for a downlink data message. In some cases, a base station may transmit a downlink data message to a user equipment (UE). The UE may perform a decoding process for the message. The UE may determine whether the decoding process is likely to fail during a first portion of the decoding process prior to completion of the decoding process. The UE may transmit a predicted NACK message to the base station prior to a feedback opportunity configured for the UE to transmit feedback based on a result of the completed decoding process. The base station may determine whether to retransmit the downlink data message based on the predicted NACK message, such that the predicted NACK message may reduce the latency associated with retransmission of downlink data messages.