Since we last reported on the current Global Recession, the Global Leading Economic Indicator (GLEI) rose for the month of March, but is following an atypical growth pattern coming out of recession, with a slope far shallower than the normal expected rebound. Also noteworthy this month is that the percentage of countries with rising LEI’s seems to have stalled-out at 69%. This is concerning at this stage of the recovery and only 5 months with the GLEI above zero. EXTERNAL […]

Our prior post titled “World Recession Update” depicted the percentage of 41 countries tracked around the globe that were printing 1 or 2 consecutive negative quarters of GDP growth. It is easy to view the data presented and come to the alarming conclusion the world is accelerating  into an ever-deepening recession and the U.S is bound to follow soon. However there are two sides to this coin and when we inspect the Leading Economic Indicators (LEI’s) of the 41 countries […]

We have quarterly GDP data for 11 more OECD countries since our last post “World plunges into recession in Q42012“, and there have been some 2nd estimate revisions (such as the U.S). The chart below shows an improvement over the last post we made with the inclusion of more data points, but both the measures of single and two quarter recession metrics are still below their respective “Global Recession” thresholds: The table below plots the last 20 quarters (5 years) […]

With the disappointing initial GDP releases for Q42012 from Europe out, the “world” as defined by 41 OECD countries across the globe, has plunged into recession. We define “recession” through two alternative definitions for our comparison, either the presence of a single negative quarter-on-quarter growth or the more traditional two consecutive negative quarterly growths. Whichever way you look at it, the number of countries in expansion plunged dramatically between 3Q2012 and 4Q2012 as shown below: Now this is a diffusion index, with each country receiving equal […]

Personal Incomes, less Transfer Payments and deflated by Personal Consumption Expenditures, is used as one of the four co-incident components of the NBER Recession Model. There was a huge jump in this indicator for the months of  November and December 2012  quite possibly as a result of incomes being pulled forward as a result of the Fiscal Cliff taxes uncertainty. According to the BEA, “Personal income in November and December was boosted by accelerated and special dividend payments to persons and by […]

Over the last two months we had Real Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Personal Incomes and Non-Farm payrolls all pushing new expansion highs. The only data not in for December now is Real Incomes. In addition we have noted upward revisions as opposed to the downward revisions promised by the recession-is-here camp. With neither leading nor co-incident data to lean on in support of a recession call, options are getting slim in defense of a recession that is supposedly in its […]

We are pleased to announce the revamp of our historical time-series data file, which is published quarterly, with the following new additions: Addition of  Labor Market Index historical data Addition of Long Leading Index historical data Addition of RAVI historical data for 1/2/3/5/10 year forecasts New analytic tool & charting visualisations RFE+ which is index showing number of 12 models flagging recession The first two items are self-explanatory and you can read about them and look at their sample reports on the […]

Professor Piger updated his recession probability model that caused so much attention early November (See “Debunking 100% probability of recession“). As we forecast last month, the probability index undertook a “revision” of epic proportions as displayed below (01-Dec-12 vintage): This is a classic real-world rendition as to why you cannot make “never before has recession probability reached 20% without a recession ensuing shortly after ” type inferences with these Markov model readings, and why the developers of the model use […]

Industrial Production was slowed by hurricane Sandy and its growth rate is now in recession territory. Bear in mind, for our “NBER Recession Model of last resort” we use a much faster smoothed growth here than the standard 12-month rate of change and therefore many other studies you observe on Industrial production may not be in recession territory yet. We have found the faster growth rate window deployed by our model to work the best for our composite model though. A recession signal from Industrial production […]

The latest buzz on the internet is a FRED chart published by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis of Chauvet and Piger’s dynamic factor Markov recession probability index. Its currently jumped from less than 1% to 18%. Inferences are being made that recessions have always been underway or occurred very shortly after a reading of 18%. Suddenly the 18% probability went to 100% based on this inference. Why this inference is so ludicrous is also aptly described on Jeff Millers’ […]

The latest CFNAI-MA3 reading came in at -0.47 from last weeks -0.26 (revised down from -0.21). This downward jump (and downward revision)  naturally has everyone on edge. We are not yet concerned with this reading as it is not being corroborated by any leading indicators. However with the perma-bears now being forced to hang their hats onto the “revisions” coat-hook recently, this reading appears uncomfortably close to the -0.7 recession trigger for those spooked by the perma-bears’ gloomy predictions. We looked […]