Weekly Economic & Financial Commentary

The Expansion Plods Along in a Quiet Data Week

U.S. Review

• Housing market data were generally mixed this week, with builder confidence and housing starts declining while existing home sales rose.
• Despite a healthy 0.5 percent increase in industrial production in March, the devil was in the details. The largest surge in utilities output on record masked a decline inmanufacturing production.
• The Leading Economic Index (LEI) posted another broadbased gain in March. Our recession forecasting model, which heavily incorporates the LEI, shows a very small chance of a recession in the next six months.

Global Review

It’s Official: The Global Economy Is Improving 

• The latest IMF global forecast just confirmed what we have been observing for almost half a year: that the global economy was on the mend and that we expect an improvement in economic growth across the world. The IMF’s forecast for this year is now 3.5 percent versus 3.1 percent for 2016.
• The Chinese economy grew at a 6.9 percent rate in the first quarter of the year, year over year, a tad higher than what markets were expecting and is the third consecutive improvement in a similar number of quarters. 

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