Sorry about the long absence. My computer crashed, was resuscitated, then crashed again. I have made enough transfers from the old drive to get the blog back on it’s feet and I’m waiting for the call from the repair shop to see how much else I’ll be able to restore.
While I wasn’t watching closely, the good news diffusion index (GNDI), a measure of what proportion of the news coming out of the Principal Federal Economic Indicators system is “good news,” as determined by the baldest possible reading of the various reports’ leading paragraphs and figures, edged back a little to 47.1 percent in July.
In early August, the index has gotten off to its best start yet. I’ll give specific figures after a few more of the numbers have come out.
Our proprietary composite index of labor market conditions dropped a bit further in July, but the decline was the smallest since February 2008 when the recession was just getting under official way.
The index had actually reached its peak at 102.8 (2007=100) in December 2006, fully a year before the recession began. This long lead at peaks and equally long lag at troughs has been a feature of the index’s performance in recent recessions. When it was constructed its average lead or lag was about a quarter, rather than a year or more. There’s a paper in that somewhere.
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