Recent Updates
- China: 70-City Property Prices (Sep), Capacity Utilization, GDP (Q3)
- US: Regional Retail Sales (Sep)
- Spain: Motor Vehicle Registrations (Sep)
- Canada Regional: CPI by Province (Sep), Retail Trade by Province (Aug)
- Canada: CPI (Sep), Retail Trade (Aug)
- Ireland: General Government Debt, General Government Transactions (Q2)
- Latvia: PPI (Sep)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
Canadian Retail Sales Weaken As Inflation Slows
Canada's retail sales show relatively widespread deceleration...
U.S. Leading Economic Indicators Strengthen
The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.5% (7.0% y/y) during September...
Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Growth Continues; Pricing Pressure Eases
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index dipped to 22.2 during October...
U.S. Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance Ease
Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 210,000 (-8.7% y/y) during the week ended October 13...
U.K. Retail Sales: Doing Well-As-Can-Be-Expected Despite September Drop
U.K. retail sales and growth have all held up remarkably well- so far...
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 | ||||
