Conference Board Leading Economic Index

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index is an American economic leading indicator intended to forecast future economic activity. It is calculated by The Conference Board, a non-governmental organization, which determines the value of the index from the values of ten key variables. These variables have historically turned downward before a recession and upward before an expansion. The single index value composed from these ten variables has generally proved capable of predicting recessions over the past 50 years.^{[citation needed]}

• The Labor Department’s monthly Employment Situation report including the unemployment rate, average hourly earnings and the average workweek hours
• The Labor Department’ weekly report on first-time claims for state unemployment insurance
• The Census Bureau’s monthly “Preliminary Report on Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders” including consumer goods and materials
• The Census Bureau’s monthly Preliminary Report on Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders including non-defense capital goods
• The Census Bureau’s monthly report on building permits from the Housing Starts and Building Permits report
• The difference (spread) between the 10-year Treasury notes interest rate and the Federal Funds interest rate
• The Federal Reserve's inflation-adjusted measure of the M2 money supply
• The Institute for Supply Management’s monthly ISM Index of Manufacturing including production, employment, prices, supplier deliveries, imports, inventories, new orders, new export orders and order backlogs.
• The S&P 500
• The University of Michigan’s monthly Consumer Sentiment Index's consumer expectations

See also

• Economic indicator

External links

• The Conference Board's Global Business Cycle Indicators
• The 10 components of the Conference Board Leading Economic Index
• OECD leading indicator statistics
• Floyd Norris - New York Times Piece