Tag Archives: leading indicators

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog Most of the commentary you will read about Q1 GDP that was released this morning will be about the core coincident components. For that I will simply outsource to Harvard’s Prof. Jason Furman: “much of the slowdown was in non-inertial items like inventories (-0.35pp) and net exports (-0.86pp). The better signal of final sales to private domestic purchasers was 3.1%.” I agree. With that out of...

Why the Index of Leading Indicators failed  – by New Deal democrat I have a post by the above title up at Seeking Alpha. The Index of Leading Indicators has persistently declined for 22 months, and is off by a level that in the past has been consistent with already ongoing, deep recessions. And yet the economy has continued to improve. Clearly there has been a misfire. The above article explains in more detail why I believe this has...

Why the index of leading indicators failed: examining the once in a lifetime post-pandemic tailwind  – by New Deal democrat Carl Quintanilla observed the one year anniversary of the following two days ago: I’ve written previously about what confounded that forecast. But let me highlight those issues again. 1. A 40% drop in gas prices, and a generalized 10% drop in commodity prices can do wonders for both producers and consumers. Here’s...

Lackluster spending, a decline in real income and savings in March; when the house price spiral turns, consumers are in real trouble In March nominal personal income rose 0.5%, and spending rose 1.1%. But since the personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, rose 0.9%, real income declined -0.4%, and real personal spending rose only +0.2%. While both real income and spending are well above their pre-pandemic...

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 28 – April 1 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The big news of the week was the spreading yield curve inversion in the Treasury market.* Needless to say, that puts another bullet in the body of the long leading forecast – but it’s still not negative. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment on the economic data, and my...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. As the Omicron tsunami recedes, what is still present is high commodity prices (not least of which is gasoline), and mortgage rates at levels that have not been seen in close to 3 years. The overall picture is of an economy that is very slowly decelerating, or worsening, depending on whether you feel...

The Debut of the Deranged DOOOMers, 2021 edition: No, the strong advance of the Index of Leading Indicators is not forecasting a recession Five to ten years ago, I used to have a lot of fun taking the hide off DOOOMers. You know, the pundits who always find some new statistic or other that absolutely shows (for today only! Until the statistic goes the other way, in which case there’s radio silence) that the economy is DOOOMed!!!Well, I am...