Lewis-Mertens-Stock (NY Fed) weekly economic indicators and Baumeister, Leiva-Leon and Sims WECI and Woloszko (OECD) weekly trackers Weekly indicators for the period ending December 17 were released today.
figure 1: Lewis-Mertens-Stock weekly economic index (blue), OECD weekly tracker (tan), Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims US weekly economic conditions index plus 2% trend (green).Source: New York Fed via fred, OECD, WECIand the authors’ calculations.
The deceleration over time and across indicators has been remarkably consistent, with the exception of the weekly tracker, which fell into negative territory in the week ended November 26 before bouncing back to match the WEI. A WEI reading of 1.2% for the week ending 12/17 could be interpreted as a 1.2% YoY growth if the 1.2% reading persists throughout the quarter. The weekly OECD tracking index reading of 1.3% can be interpreted as a year-on-year growth rate of 1.3% through 12/17.this Baumeister et al. A reading of 0.5% is interpreted as a growth rate of 0.5% above the long-term trend growth rate. US GDP growth averaged around 2% over the period 2000-19, so this implies a growth rate of 2.5% as of 12/17.
GDPNow for the fourth quarter ended 20 December 2020 was 2.7% q/q SAAR. There will be a new release tomorrow.
