The Leading Economic Index (LEI) published by the Conference Board increased 0.6% in September, echoing the trend that’s been unfolding with the release of individual indicators in recent weeks and summarized yesterday in a broad review of last month’s numbers via The Capital Spectator Economic Trend Index. But in the wake of this morning’s sharp jump in weekly jobless claims figures for last week, the generally positive numbers for last month carry less weight than they did yesterday. All will be resolved, for good or ill, when we see more data for October in the coming weeks. Meantime, there are some new questions, if only on the margins.
Daily Archives: October 18, 2012
Weekly Jobless Claims: A Sharp Turn For The Worse
If you needed another reason to treat weekly jobless claims data with caution in the short term, today’s update aims to please. The unusually large drop reported previously (for the week through October 6) evaporated in today’s release, and then some. As I noted last week, any big change in the number du jour for this volatile series requires several weeks of corroborating data before it’s safe to make hard and fast conclusions. If that wasn’t obvious before, it is now.