Consumer Metrics Institute Growth Index

Consumer Metrics Institute Growth Index 
 A Ray of Hope? 

Courtesy of Doug Short, working with Rick Davis’s data from Consumer Metrics Institute 

Note from dshort: The charts are now updated through September 13th. The Growth Index has been in contraction territory for 244 days. The encouraging news, however, is that the contraction has gradually slowed and leveled out over the past three days. Is this the beginning of a reversal? Perhaps. However, we saw a similar situation in mid-June. The Growth Index leveled out and increased in value for a little over two weeks before continuing its decline. 

The direction of the more volatile Weighted Composite Index will determine the reality of a sustained reversal. The Composite hit its recent low on August 1 with a year-over-year contraction of 9.43%. The contraction has lessened to -4.28%.

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The charts below focus on the ‘Trailing Quarter’ Growth Index, which is computed as a 91-day moving average for the year-over-year growth/contraction of the Weighted Composite Index, an index that tracks near real-time consumer behavior in a wide range of consumption categories. The Growth Index is a calculated metric that smooths the volatility and gives a better sense of expansions and contractions in consumption.

The 91-day period is useful for comparison with key quarterly metrics such as GDP. Since the consumer accounts for over two-thirds of the US economy, one would expect that a well-crafted index of consumer behavior would serve as a leading indicator. As the chart suggests, during the five-year history of the index, it has generally lived up to that expectation. Actually, the chart understates the degree to which the Growth Index leads GDP. Why? Because the advance estimates for GDP are released a month after the end of the quarter in question, so the Growth Index lead time has been substantial.

Has the Growth Index also served as a leading indicator of the stock market? The next chart is an overlay of the index and the S&P 500. The Growth Index clearly peaked before the market in 2007 and bottomed in late August of 2008, over six months before the market low in March 2009.

The most recent peak in the Growth Index was around the first of…

Read the original story at Phil’s Stock World