LEI

Conference Board Leading Economic Indicators drop -0.2% for June 2010

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The conference board leading economic indicator (LEI) index dropped -0.2% for June. May was a +0.5% increase and April was a-0.1% decrease.

Below is their graph from the report, with both LEI and the coincident index, which was unchanged from May. The Conference Board's lagging economic indicator index increased +0.1% in June.

 

LEI

 

Unfortunately (at least in a press release), the Conference board does not give the formula or weighting of this index. The elements are Average weekly hours, manufacturing, Average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, Manufacturers’ new orders, consumer goods and materials, Index of supplier deliveries – vendor performance, Manufacturers' new orders, nondefense capital goods, Building permits, new private housing units, Stock prices of 500 common stocks, M2 of the Money supply, Interest rate spread, 10-year Treasury bonds less federal funds and the Index of consumer expectations.

As one can see there are some elements completely divorced at this point from the real economy, such as corporate quarterly profits and stock values.

The Philadelphia Fed also released state coincident indexes.

 

Conference Board Leading Economic Indicators for August 2009

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The Conference board has released their LEIs for August 2009. Their leading economic indicator index (LEI) is up 0.6% for August. July was 0.9% and June was 0.8% respectively.

"Since reaching a peak in July 2007, the LEI fell for twenty months – the longest downtrend since the mid 1970s – but it has been rising since April and its gains have become very widespread," says Ataman Ozyildirim, Economist at The Conference Board. "The six-month growth rate of the LEI continues to accelerate. At the same time, the downtrend in the coincident economic index, measuring current economic activity, seems to be stabilizing, with the index flat so far this quarter."

Leding Economic Indicators up 1.2% in May!

The Conference Board just reported that:

The Conference Board LEI for the U.S. increased sharply for the second consecutive month in May.... The index rose 1.2 percent (a 2.4 percent annual rate) between November 2008 and May 2009, the first time the index has increased over a six-month period since April 2007....
....

The Conference Board LEI [,... b]ased on revised data, ... increased 1.1 percent in April and decreased 0.3 percent in March. During the six-month span through May, the leading economic index increased 1.2 percent, with five out of ten components advancing (diffusion index, six-month span equals 50 percent).

That the LEI are now positive on both a 3 and 6 month basis is a big deal. More later with graphs.