This entry was posted on September 29, 2022 by Menzie Chinn.
Figure 1: Lewis-Mertens-Stock (NY Fed) Weekly Economic Index (blue), Woloszko (OECD) Weekly Tracker (tan), Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index for United States plus 2% trend (green) Source: NY Fed through FRED, OECD, WECI, and authors calculations.
The WEI recovered from the previous week, up to 2.7% from 1.9%, while the Weekly Tracker continued to rise. The Weekly Tracker– at 1.1%– is a “huge information” technique that utilizes Google Trends and machine learning to track GDP.
The WEI reading for the week ending 9/24 of 2.7% is interpretable as a y/y quarter development of 2.7% if the 2.7% reading were to continue for an entire quarter. The OECD Weekly Tracker reading of 1.1% is interpretable as a y/y development rate of 1.1% for year ending 9/24 (this series was revised downward significantly from last release).
Considering that these are year-on-year growth rates, its possible we remained in a recession in H1 as one observer recommended a month ago, but it (still) seems unlikely.
As measured by NY Fed WEI, OECD Weekly Tracker, and Baumeister, Leiva-Leon and Sims WECI.
