Word: indexes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Industrial production rose to 127 in May on the Federal Reserve Board index, up a point since April and the first rise in nine months...
...with the general business cycle, e.g., corporate profits, industrial production. The Lagging Series includes areas that generally lag behind the curve of the economy, e.g., manufacturers' inventories and interest rates on business loans. Finally, the Leading, the Coincident and the Lagging Series are added together in a composite index, which is less sensitive but more accurate than the Leading Series alone. In the past, when the Leading Series turned in one direction and the Composite Series moved in the same direction several months afterwards, the economy has usually followed in that direction. Therefore, the leaders give the first clues...
Alarms & Accuracy. First compiled by Burns, now head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the indexes have been expanded and sharpened by Bureau Economist Geoffrey Moore. As with all indicators, the diffusion indexes have produced some false alarms. But the Leading Series has forecast all the postwar recessions. Last May 1957, two months before the economy reached the peak, the Leading group nosed down to signal trouble ahead. But the real warning came last August, when the composite index of all 21 areas started a fast slide...
...unemployment averaged 5.5% of the labor force, and prices dropped 1.9% on the BLS Consumer Price Index. But in 1954, when unemployment was about as high, prices declined only .5%. In short, prices are growing more and more rigid. Unemployment stands at 7.5% of the labor force, yet prices are still climbing. Last month they hit an alltime record 123.5 on the index, and no real end to the upward spiral is in sight...
...worldwide fall in commodity prices has presented the U.S. and the West with a problem of alarming proportions. What should, or must, be done for those underdeveloped nations whose economies depend largely on sales of raw materials? The U.S. commodity index shows a 10% drop in prices in the last year alone. This squeeze has aroused anti-Americanism round the world and handed the Communists a golden opportunity for trade deals and political demonstrations such as those against Vice President Nixon. The price drop has also partially nullified Western aid programs; the United Nations estimates that a 4% drop...