The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S marginally declined this month - and the authors say "The Conference Board forecasts that US GDP growth will likely decelerate to about 2 percent by the end of 2019".

Analyst Opinion of the Leading Economic Index

Because of the significant backward revisions, current data cannot be trusted. And this month, there are even bigger caveats. From the Conference Board:

NOTE: Please note that due to the recent government shutdown, data for three US LEI components - manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and materials, manufacturers' new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft and building permits - were not available for several of the recent months. The Conference Board has used its standard procedure of statistical imputations to fill in the missing data in order to publish a preliminary Leading Economic Index. The Conference Board will be issuing an interim release on March 4th, once these data are published.

This month's release incorporates annual benchmark revisions to the composite economic indexes. The benchmark usually takes place in January but was postponed due to the government shutdown. These regular benchmark revisions bring the indexes up-to-date with revisions in the source data. The revisions do not change the cyclical properties of the indexes. The indexes are updated throughout the year, but only for the previous six months. Data revisions that fall outside of the moving six-month window are incorporated when the benchmark revision is made, and the entire histories of the indexes are recomputed. As a result, the revised indexes and their month-over-month changes will no longer be directly comparable to those issued prior to the benchmark revision. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.conference-board.org/data/bci.cfm or contact indicators@conference-board.org.

This index is designed to forecast the economy six months in advance. The market (from Econoday) expected this index's month-over-month change at +0.0 % to 0.2 % (consensus +0.2 %) versus the -0.1 % reported.

ECRI's Weekly Leading Index (WLI) is forecasting a slight contraction over the next six months.

Additional comments from the economists at The Conference Board add context to the index's behavior.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI)for theU.S. declined 0.1 percent in January (according to preliminary estimates) to 111.3 (2016 = 100), following no change in December, and a 0.1 percent increase in November.

"Based on preliminary data, the US LEI declined very slightly in January and December's decline was revised up to no change," said Ataman Ozyildirim, Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board. "In January, the strengths in the financial components were offset by the weaknesses in the labor market components. The US LEI has now been flat essentially since October 2018. The Conference Board forecasts that US GDP growth will likely decelerate to about 2 percent by the end of 2019."

The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) for the U.S. increased 0.1 percent in January to 105.5 (2016 = 100), following a 0.2 percent increase in December, and a 0.2 percent increase in November.

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LEI as an Economic Monitoring Tool:

The methodology for this index was "improved" in December 2011.

As a comparison to the LEI, ECRI's WLI (which Econintersect reports on weekly) is now in expansion showing weaker growth.

Current ECRI WLI Index

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Econintersect believes the USA economy is expanding at Main Street level. (analysis here).

Caveats on the Use of the Leading Economic Index (LEI)

This index is produced by The Conference Board (a private money making company) - who charges for the details of the indices they publish - although the summary of this index is available to the public. Its designed to predict economic growth over the next six months.

This is not a "black box" economic forecasting index as The Conference Board publishes the components. It was completely revised with the release of the December 2011 (analysis comparing the old and new index components - click here). The new components of the index and multipliers:

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The index does not adjust for inflation or population growth, is not final for several months after being published, and is subject to annual revision. The methodology in producing this index:

1) normalized levels of the indicator rather than its monthly changes will be used to calculate the component contributions of components based on diffusion indexes such as the ISM New Orders Index; 2) when component data are missing, autoregressions in log differences instead of levels will be used to calculate the statistical imputation of the missing months; 3) trend adjustment will be done in two periods: 1959-1983 and 1984-2010 (same as the volatility adjustment); and 4) LCI contributions to the LEI are calculated from its levels (not monthly changes) and it is inverted As a result of these changes, the history of the revised indexes and their month-over-month changes will no longer be directly comparable to those issued prior to the comprehensive benchmark revision. Based on its performance since 1990, and especially before and during the 2008-2009 recession, the new LEI should provide more accurate predictions of business cycle peaks and troughs.

Econintersect has published correlations of the new LEI to past recessions. At first glance, this index provides a recession warning.

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The fly-in-the-ointment is that this analysis is that the above graph is not a real-time analysis. Consider that the LEI is not final when first issued - it is subject to revision for months. From The Conference Board:

To address the problem of lags in available data, those leading, coincident and lagging indicators that are not available at the time of publication are estimated using statistical imputation. An autoregressive model is used to estimate each unavailable component. The resulting indexes are therefore constructed using real and estimated data and will be revised as the unavailable data during the time of publication become available. Such revisions are part of the monthly data revisions, now a regular part of the U.S. Business Cycle Indicators program.

The data does not exist to establish what The Conference Board's LEI values would have been in real time - at this point, only the final numbers are known. Unfortunately, knowing the current values is no assurance that a recession is or is not imminent as there is no track record of real-time performance.