ECRI: Weekly Leading Index Slips

[HenryTo]

Does anyone subscribe to ECRI or keep track of their press releases? Their calls have been very good over the last four to five years (as far as I know) and one certainly does not want to fade them. Like I said before, I have always expected that the U.S. will fare the best in a global slowdown - let's see how it plays out over the next six to nine months. I will let our readers know if we change our stance. For now, we will just take it one day at a time.
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Reuters

Weekly Leading Index Slips
05/06/2005
NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) - A leading index of the U.S. economy slipped in the latest week, due to higher jobless claims and weaker commodity prices.

The declines were offset in part by a rise in mortgage applications and lower interest rates, a report showed on Friday.

The Economic Cycle Research Institute, an independent forecasting group, said its weekly leading index fell a bit to 134.4 in the week ended April 29 compared with an downwardly revised 134.7 in the prior week.

The index's annualized growth rate, which smoothes out weekly fluctuations, was down to 3.0 percent compared with 3.2 percent in the prior week.

"Although recent investor pessimism has helped pull WLI growth down to a nine-week low, it is still solidly above its Oct. 22 low of 130.5. This resilience bodes well for economic growth in the second half of this year," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at ECRI.

[HenryTo]

Okay, just another update from the ECRI on their weekly leading index. Thanks for the posts, Paul and Pete!

Paul: Do you subscribe to their emerging markets leading indicator?

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Weekly Leading Index Rises
05/13/2005
NEW YORK, May 13 (Reuters) - A leading index of the U.S. economy edged up in the latest week due to an increase in mortgages applications and stock prices, which partly offset rising interest rates and jobless claims, a report showed on Friday.

The Economic Cycle Research Institute, an independent forecasting group, said its weekly leading index rose to 134.9 in the week ended May 6 compared with a downwardly revised 134.3 in the prior week.

The index's annualized growth rate, which smoothes out weekly fluctuations, is down to 2.9 percent compared to 3.0 percent in the prior week.

"Even though the weekly leading index's growth has drifted down since late March, it is holding well above its Oct. 2004 low of 130.5. Affirming that economic growth will hold up in the second half of 2005," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at ECRI.

[pete richardson]

Henry --

ECRI does a decent job with its leading indicator index. You can readily track some of the more volatile components yourself:

Stock price composite like the S&P 500

Sensitive materials prices

Weekly unemployment insurance claims

Mortgage apps.

Weekly changes in raw materials prices and the IUIC data can impart significant volatility to the index, even with a little smoothing of the data.

Best,

Peter

[pcoulter]

Henry,
I've subscribed for the last year or so. Things were looking pretty ugly earlier this year, but for now the index has turned up and looks as though the US economy will experience some dismal growth. More interestingly, as the economy has cooled from last year, ERCI's leading inflation index has moved up and currently sits at a high reading.