Recession's Over: Sixth Straight Monthly Increase in Leading Indicators

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gauge of the U.S. economy's prospects rose for a sixth-straight month in September to a two-year high (see chart above), a private research group said on Thursday, suggesting the U.S. recovery was building steam.

The Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 1% to 103.5, the highest level since October 2007. It said the sixth month growth rate for the index was at its highest pace since 1983. "These numbers strongly suggest that a recovery is developing," Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said in a statement. "However, the intensity of that recovery will depend on how much, and how soon, demand picks up.

The chart below displays the monthly change in the Leading Economic Index back to 2004, showing that the last time there were six consecutive monthly increases was in mid-2004, more than 5 years ago. On a percentage basis, the 5.72% March-September increase is the largest half-year gain since August of 1983, more than 26 years ago. Further, the unadjusted 5.6 point gain from 97.9 in March to 103.5 in September is the largest six-month gain in Conference Board history going back to 1959.

Comments

[Billw77:]

This market will ignore unemployment in the 17% range until it crashes again! The 17% unemployed have been spending due to relatively good unemployment benefits. But that has been going on for 1.5 years now. If we do not create jobs for these people to go back to, then that is no different than Bernanke and company's printing money for QE. This group in power intends to keep pumping out the money, and put off the inevitable for as long as possible. There is a good sized group who have already predicted how long that will be. Roubini is on record for the middle of 2010. John Mauldin says within the next 18 months. You can count Jim Rogers and George Soros in that camp also. Too bad we aren't cutting government spending and taxes so we could help businesses create jobs to put people back tp work.

Oct 22 08:47 PM

[bigbear4511:]

Leading indicators eh. It was funny write up until the crash all these banks were conducting stress tests and passing with flying colours. A few months later they were all on the edge of bankrupcty. This recovery is completely manipulated and can only maintain itself with the governement dumping money into it. It has to stop sometime.

Oct 23 04:23 AM