The Magic 8-Ball of Stats Canada's Leading Indicators Index seems to suggest that we have entered a recovery from the great Financial Apocalypse of 2009 (trademark pending).
To quote the actual post:
The composite leading index rose by 1.1% in August, after a 0.6% gain in July. The increase was the largest since April 2002. Growth in the leading index usually only exceeds 1% early in the recovery from a downturn. In August, 8 of the 10 components contributed to the advance, up from 5 the month before, as the manufacturing sector joined the advance.
So we are actually early in the recovery, well that's good, it would be really bad if this reflected the end of the recovery, so I guess we can all be relatively happy about these numbers.
Housing and Stocks seem to be leading the way which is a good thing for folks with the forethought of buying stocks last November when prices were the lowest and not so good news for folks who haven't got back into the market yet (might want to wait for a while, unless you like following the herd, then follow the other lemmings back into the market).
Interesting how most "pundits" are now saying the recovery has started and you should be getting your money in now, notice they also said last November that to help get us out of the coming recession we should spend, and of course during the recovery we'll need to keep spending to sustain the recovery. Only question I could come up with was, "When do we STOP spending?", maybe it's just me.
The BIG Table
This table is actually enormous and I would suggest if you really want to read it click here and go check it out at the Stats Canada web site.
| March 2009 |
April 2009 |
May 2009 |
June 2009 |
July 2009 |
August 2009 |
Last month of data available |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
% change |
| Composite leading indicator (1992=100) |
215.8 |
213.8 |
213.7 |
213.6 |
214.8 |
217.2 |
1.1 |
| Housing index (1992=100)1 |
97.8 |
96.7 |
97.7 |
102.5 |
107.3 |
110.6 |
3.1 |
| Business and personal services employment ('000) |
2,917 |
2,914 |
2,914 |
2,905 |
2,898 |
2,892 |
-0.2 |
| S&P/TSX stock price index (1975=1,000) |
8,759 |
8,770 |
9,047 |
9,383 |
9,915 |
10,345 |
4.3 |
| Money supply, M1 ($ millions, 1992)2 |
189,656 |
191,602 |
192,980 |
193,952 |
195,887 |
197,377 |
0.8 |
| US Conference Board leading indicator (1992=100)3 |
120.1 |
119.7 |
119.7 |
120.0 |
120.6 |
121.4 |
0.7 |
| Manufacturing |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Average workweek (hours) |
36.5 |
36.3 |
36.5 |
36.6 |
36.6 |
36.7 |
0.3 |
| New orders, durables ($ millions, 1992)4 |
23,728 |
21,942 |
19,377 |
17,639 |
16,627 |
17,971 |
8.1 |
| Shipments/inventories of finished goods4 |
1.64 |
1.60 |
1.57 |
1.56 |
1.54 |
1.55 |
0.015 |
| Retail trade |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Furniture and appliance sales ($ millions, 1992)4 |
2,917 |
2,881 |
2,850 |
2,825 |
2,814 |
2,809 |
-0.2 |
| Other durable goods sales ($ millions, 1992)4 |
9,355 |
9,254 |
9,200 |
9,203 |
9,391 |
9,441 |
0.5 |
| Unsmoothed composite leading indicator |
210.2 |
211.9 |
217.7 |
217.1 |
217.3 |
222.1 |
2.2 |
