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Economy in Brief
Delay in Release
of Data for Construction, MSIO, Intl Trade, Wholesale Trade, Monthly Treasury, Retail Sales, Business Sales & Inventories, and Housing Starts Due to Lapse in Federal Government Funding.
U.K. Retail Sales Begin to Lose Momentum
U.K. retail sales fell by a sharp 1% in December...
Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index Rebounds; Pricing Pressure Eases
The Philadelphia Fed reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index increased to 17.0 during January...
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Slip
Initial claims for jobless insurance eased to 213,000 (-2.6% y/y) during the week ended January 12...
Passenger Car Registrations Hold to Low Ground in Europe
Passenger car registrations in Europe fell on a year-over-year comparison for the fourth consecutive months in December...
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 | ||||
