POWERFUL FED
“No postwar recovery has died in bed of age – the Federal Reserve has murdered every one of them.” – Rudiger “Rudi” Dornbusch (1942-2002), Internationally renowned macroeconomist
‘If you wait for the sky to be blue to invest, you will never invest – stock market climb wall of worries’ – Prof. Jeremy Siegel
At Zion Financial Planning, LLC, we are closely following the Marco Economy and the Market trend and their developments to provide the cornerstone for our comprehensive financial planning and investment management.
The Conference Board publishes leading, coincident, and lagging indexes designed to signal peaks and troughs in the business cycle for major economies around the world.
Latest Press Release
Updated: Friday, March 17, 2023
LEI for the U.S. Continued to Decline in February
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. fell again by 0.3 percent in February 2023 to 110.0 (2016=100), after also declining by 0.3 percent in January. The LEI is down 3.6 percent over the six-month period between August 2022 and February 2023—a steeper rate of decline than its 3.0 percent contraction over the previous six months (February–August 2022).
“The LEI for the US fell again in February, marking its eleventh consecutive monthly decline,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Manager, Business Cycle Indicators, at The Conference Board. “Negative or flat contributions from eight of the index’s ten components more than offset improving stock prices and a better-than-expected reading for residential building permits. While the rate of month-over-month declines in the LEI have moderated in recent months, the leading economic index still points to risk of recession in the US economy. The most recent financial turmoil in the US banking sector is not reflected in the LEI data but could have a negative impact on the outlook if it persists. Overall, The Conference Board forecasts rising interest rates paired with declining consumer spending will most likely push the US economy into recession in the near term.”
What Is an Inverted Yield Curve?
An inverted yield curve shows that long-term interest rates are less than short-term interest rates. With an inverted yield curve, the yield decreases the farther away the maturity date is. Sometimes referred to as a negative yield curve, the inverted curve has proven in the past to be a reliable indicator of a recession.