The Conference Board, with 90 years of trusted insights into generic nomenclature, released its monthly report today.
The U.S. leading index climbed in July, which suggests that economy is going to grow, but at a snail’s crawl. This is good news because crawling is better than stagnation or retreat, and you need to crawl before you learn to walk, and how many roads must an economy walk down, before you call the economy a bull? We’ll see if the August report stays in tune with suggesting slow economic growth.
The positive contributors to the leading index’s climb were trends in consumer expectations, vendor performance and initial claims for unemployment insurance which offset the negative contributions made by trends in housing permits, manufacturers’ new orders for non-defense capital goods and interest rate spreads.
Global Business Cycle Indicators [The Conference Board]
Posted by BigBen, Aug 20, 2007 11:22AM
Bernanke should cut rates to zero so the snail can move at a faster pace, maybe grow some legs in the process.