Is anyone familiar with this index?
If you choose to go to the link, click on the interactive graph on the right side. I just heard about this index for the first time about a month ago. Now, Bloomberg runs it as a lead story. I suspect it may be added to the litany of empirical data we are deluged with monthly.
It’s touted as being highly correlated to economic activity, without government bias, and in real time. But it appears that all it did during the past 10 years is follow the pattern of malinvestment that started in 2001, ie, it’s correlated to the boom / bust cycle created by the Fed. You could just as easily use a chart of the S&P 500 for the same period to get the same result. It’s another example of how economists enjoy statistical correlations (I prefer understanding how an economy actually works, but that’s just me).