The December reading of the CFNAI-MA3 offers another strong signal
for arguing that the US economy ended 2012 in a recession-free state and
that modest growth rolls on. That's been the message all along. As I noted earlier this month,
business cycle risk is low, based on a broad reading of economic and
financial indicators through December. That analysis has only
strengthened in the two weeks since I ran the numbers. As more December
data has been published, the overall trend has remained positive.
Examples include the upbeat news on retail sales,industrial production, and housing starts through last month, followed by today's CFNAI release.
No one will confuse the macro trend as unusually strong, however. As
the CFNAI press release notes, "economic growth moderated in December."
The Chicago Fed advises that "December's CFNAI-MA3 suggests that growth
in national economic activity was below its historical trend."
Nonetheless, the soft trend has been enough to keep the economy out of
the cyclical ditch, at least through the December, based on the numbers
published to date.
The debate about January and beyond is, of course, wide open. But
December's profile, and 2012's as well, shows a clear bias on the side
of growth. Yes, data revisions could come back to haunt us. But at the
moment, with a broad array of generally positive numbers published
through the end of last year, it's reasonable to expect that any
negative revisions will be marginal in terms of the broad trend.