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“Seven of the ten indicators that make up The Conference Board LEI for the U.S. increased in March. The positive contributors – beginning with the largest positive contributor – were the interest rate spread, average weekly manufacturing hours, the index of supplier deliveries (vendor performance), stock prices, building permits, average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted), and manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials*. The negative contributors – beginning with the largest negative contributor – were real money supply*, manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods* and the index of consumer expectations.
Exactly my point. The two biggest contributors to the LEI curve you see above are the yield curve and the SP500 performance. The gain in the SP500 over the last several months is responsible for over a third of the gain in the LEI all by itself.
After that, the biggest contributions are “vendor performance” and consumer confidence.
The rest of the positive contributions for the recent LEI prints are in the noise. Sure, they’re positive, but they’re in the statistical noise.