Summary

• High frequency indicators can give us a nearly up-to-the-moment view of the economy.
• The metrics are divided into long leading, short leading, and coincident indicators.
• The nowcast and short-term forecast remain abysmal. The long-term forecast remains positive.
• The one notable change this week was that mortgage rates made new all-time lows, and mortgage applications have rebounded sharply, approximately half the way back from their recent lows to their highs.

Purpose

I look at the high frequency weekly indicators because while they can be very noisy, they provide a good nowcast of the economy and will telegraph the maintenance or change in the economy well before monthly or quarterly data is available. They also are an excellent way to "mark your beliefs to market." In general, I go in order of long leading indicators, then short leading indicators, then coincident indicators.

A Note on Methodology

Data is presented in a "just the facts, ma'am" format with a minimum of commentary so that bias is minimized.

Where relevant, I include 12-month highs and lows in the data in parentheses to the right. All data taken from St. Louis FRED unless otherwise linked.

A few items (e.g., Financial Conditions indexes, regional Fed indexes, stock prices, the yield curve) have their own metrics based on long-term studies of their behavior.

Where data is seasonally adjusted, generally it is scored positively if it is within the top 1/3 of that range, negative in the bottom 1/3, and neutral in between. Where it's not seasonally adjusted, and there are seasonal issues, waiting for the YoY change to change sign will lag the turning point. Thus I make use of a convention: Data is scored neutral if it is less than 1/2 as positive/negative as at its 12-month extreme.

With long leading indicators, which by definition turn at least 12 months before a turning point in the economy as a whole, there's an additional rule: Data is automatically negative if, during an expansion, it has not made a new peak in the past year, with the sole exception that it's scored neutral if it's moving in the right direction and is close to making a new high.

For all series where a graph is available, I have provided a link to where the relevant graph can be found.

Recap of monthly reports

April data included big declines of over -10% in retail sales and industrial production, and both consumer and producer price deflation in both the overall and core numbers. The consumer outlook for the future as measured by the University of Michigan declined, although sentiment about the present improved.

The March JOLTS report showed sharp declines in both openings and actual hires, as well as quits. Layoff, discharges, and total separations rose sharply.

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