Recent Updates
- US: Housing Vacancies & Homeownership (Q1), FHFA Home Mortgage Terms, Advance Durable Goods, Advance Trade & Inventories (Mar)
- Canada: Payroll, Employment, Earnings & Hours (Feb)
- Spain: Mortgage Market, Labor Force Survey (Q1) State Public Finance (Mar), Social Security Funds, Consolidated, Central Government Public Finances (Feb), Tax Receipts (Q1, Mar)
- South Africa: Tourism & Migration, Export & Import Price Indexes (Feb), PPI (Mar); Kenya: GDP (2017)
- UK: RICS Commercial Market Survey (Q1) Mortgage and Consumer
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
Kansas City Federal Reserve Factory Index Hits Record High
The Kansas City Fed reported that its index of regional manufacturing sector business activity surged to a record 26...
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Decline Sharply
Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell sharply to 209,000 (-17.1% y/y)...
U.S. Mortgage Loan Applications Are Little Changed; Rates Remain High
The MBA total Mortgage Applications Volume Index eased 0.2% last week (-1.9% y/y)...
Japan Shows Very Moderate Growth As Trade War Clouds Gather
Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Rose in April
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128.7 in April from 127.0 (initially reported as 127.7) in March...
by Robert Brusca April 11, 2008
The OECD Leading indicators show weakness on a broad scale
especially when viewed in their preferred habitat as six month
percentage changes. On that basis, however, Japan is showing some more
hopeful readings (increases!) even as Japanese authorities have engaged
in some scenario-shifting leading to downgrading.
The US shows the deepest six-month and three-month signal of
deterioration. OECD Europe at -1.8% is not as weak over six months but
it shows declines over the recent six month period as well as the
previous six month period unlike the US that is very weak in the
current six months but had showed expansion over the previous six month
period.
Neither the US nor Europe show the depth of decline in this
indicator that they did at the time of the last US recession. Japan did
touch that level of deterioration but only very briefing. It is now on
a sharp reversal course.
| OECD Trend-restored leading Indicators | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth progression-SAAR | ||||
| 3-Mos | 6-Mos | 12-mos | Yr-Ago | |
| OECD | 0.5% | -1.0% | -0.4% | 1.4% |
| OECD7 | -2.6% | -3.0% | -1.5% | 0.4% |
| OECD Europe | -2.4% | -1.8% | -1.2% | 1.7% |
| OECD Japan | 4.5% | 3.1% | -2.2% | 0.7% |
| OECD US | -4.2% | -4.8% | -1.2% | 0.0% |
| Six month readings at 6-Mo Intervals: | ||||
| Recent six | 6-Mo Ago | 12-Mo Ago | 18-Mo Ago | |
| OECD | -1.0% | 0.2% | 2.3% | 0.6% |
| OECD7 | -3.0% | 0.0% | 1.1% | -0.4% |
| OECD Europe | -1.8% | -0.7% | 1.2% | 2.3% |
| OECD Japan | 3.1% | -7.1% | 0.9% | 0.4% |
| OECD US | -4.8% | 2.6% | 1.4% | -1.4% |
| Slowdowns indicated by BOLD RED | ||||
