The ECRI Weekly Leading Index
by ilene - September 17th, 2010 4:30 pm
The ECRI Weekly Leading Index
Courtesy of Doug Short
Today the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) registered negative growth for the 15th consecutive week, coming in at -9.2, a slight improvement over last week’s -10.1. The index had been hovering around -10 for the previous five weeks. The latest weekly number is based on data through September 10.
The magnitude of decline from the peak in October 2009 is unprecedented in the Institute’s published data back to 1967. Recently, however, the Institute has disclosed that two earlier decades of data not available to the general public contained comparable declines in WLI growth (in 1951 and 1966) when no recession followed (HT Barry Ritholtz).
The Published Record
The ECRI WLI growth metric has had a respectable (but by no means perfect) record for forecasting recessions. The next chart shows the correlation between the WLI, GDP and recessions.
A significant decline in the WLI has been a leading indicator for six of the seven recessions since the 1960s. It lagged one recession (1981-1982) by nine weeks. The WLI did turned negative 17 times when no recession followed, but 14 of those declines were only slightly negative (-0.1 to -2.4) and most of them reversed after relatively brief periods.
Three of the false negatives were deeper declines. The Crash of 1987 took the Index negative for 68 weeks with a trough of -6.8. The Financial Crisis of 1998, which included the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, took the Index negative for 23 weeks with a trough of -4.5.
The third significant false negative came near the bottom of the bear market of 2000-2002, about nine months after the brief recession of 2001. At the time, the WLI seemed to be signaling a double-dip recession, but the economy and market accelerated in tandem in the spring of 2003, and a recession was avoided.
The Latest WLI Decline
The question, of course, is whether the latest WLI decline is a leading indicator of a recession or a false negative. The published index has never dropped to the current level without the onset of a recession. The deepest decline without a near-term recession was in the Crash of 1987, when the index slipped…
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ECRI WLI “Flattens Out” at -9.8% – ECRI says “Gage is Fine”
by ilene - August 20th, 2010 3:17 pm
ECRI WLI "Flattens Out" at -9.8% – ECRI says "Gage is Fine"
Courtesy of Mish
Lakshman Achuthan and Anirvan Banerji, Co-founders, Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), continue to pour out statements about the ECRI WLI that are worth taking a close look at, if not outright challenging them.
Please consider Know How to Read WLI.
Sir, “Out on a limb, the ECRI weekly leading indicator … suggests a double-dip recession is imminent,” according to James Mackintosh (The Short View, August 4). This is a popular misconception pushed by pessimistic pundits.
Let’s review what the Weekly Leading index (WLI) has done this year. After rising to a two-and-a-quarter-year high by end-April, it plunged for all of two months – before flattening out and finally edging up to a six-week high by end-July. That’s hardly a recession signal.
Imagine flying in an aircraft that hits a huge air pocket and plunges 5,000ft in 10 seconds. That would leave you quite shaken up, but it doesn’t mean the aircraft’s about to crash – unless it keeps falling. That’s pretty much what’s happened with the WLI. Unless it turns down again and then keeps falling, it wouldn’t make sense to predict an imminent recession.
Many self-proclaimed experts have been back-fitting our data, looking at the WLI the wrong way, and screaming that the end is near. This is like people saying they don’t remember an aircraft dropping so fast and not crashing, while blaming the instrument makers for not trusting their own altimeter. Well, we do trust it. Bottom line, the gauge is just fine – as long as you know how to read it.
When there really is danger of an imminent recession, it will be signalled by a cyclical downturn in the WLI itself rather than its growth rate. But that hasn’t happened yet.
ECRI WLI
click on chart for sharper image
When there is "danger" of an imminent recession by the ECRI’s calls, history suggests we will have been in a recession for months. Nonetheless, one must be careful of "reading" indicators, especially when no one knows for sure what the hell it even consists of.
Instead, I would like to point out that two weeks of flattening after an enormous plunge to -10.8 is hardly worth calling "flattening". Let’s see where the index goes from here before we talk about "flattening" after that unprecedented nosedive.…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site