Leading Economic Inidicators

[ikubak]

Lost is all the juicy news of economic hardship and blood in the streets, I noticed the following in the news:

The Conference Board's January index of leading economic indicators logged a surprise increase in January, the second straight monthly increase.



Could there possibly be an end in sight for this sick economy?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Boy would I like to believe that !

It's possible but they indicate that a 1 or 2 month uptick is not a trend. It may just be some measurement noise.

My personal take is that things will seem down until the real estate/banking/credit thing is successfully dealt with.

 

[ziggy29]

Notice how the good (and even "decent") economic news tends to be buried amidst the bad economic news and the stories of individuals who went from living high on the hog to unemployed, homeless and broke in this economy.

Maybe it's a blip, maybe it will be adjusted down in the future, but for now, at least it's something not horribly negative. Which means it's not "news" in this environment.

And speaking of today's news, just as I've been saying about "deflation" being a mirage (other than formerly falling oil prices): January's PPI came in very hot, even just looking at the "core" rate it was up 0.4%. That corroborates what I've been saying: except for (until recently) gas prices, there's been only one direction I've noticed for the prices of goods and services and it hasn't been down.

 

[Gpond]

Leading indicators rose primarily due to the increase in the money supply.

This equals inflation is coming down the pipe.

Not the most boolish tang for stoxs.

 

[Gpond]

I just looked around on that thesis (about inflation coming down the pipe).

Oil up 9%+
Heating oil up 4%+
Gasoline up 3%+
Yields are up 2%+
USD down 1%

Looks like the market is seeing the same thing.

 

[Gpond]

Crude up 14%+.

May be a good time to top off the old gas tank.

 

[Steve O]

Beer went way up here