I have three US leading indices. A "short" one, which leads by 3 months, but sometimes by a bit more. A "long" one, which leads by 18-24 months, giving you long advance warning of recessions. And a--for want of a better word--"medium" leading index, which leads the business cycle by ±12 months. In the chart below, this-"medium" leading index is plotted with a 12-month lag against my US QCI, which is a monthly proxy for quarterly GDP. (It's not a perfect fit with GDP, but the fit is surprisingly close. The QCI is an unweighted average of industrial production, retail sales volume, and payrolls employment.) Relative to trend, the QCI/GDP has prolly peaked.
The leading index is distorted by the Fed's change in regulations about interest-bearing accounts, which affected the measurement of money supply. The rise in the leading index in 2021 is therefore prolly overstated.
So far, the "medium"-leading index suggests a downturn, but not a deep one. But if you reduce the peak in the leading index for the distorted money supply data, the low is the leading index must also be reduced. I'm doing a bit of research on the money supply data, and also on the leading index if we leave out money supply. [Update: 19/10/22 See updated chart here]
As usual, data have been extreme-adjusted by the Bureau of Census's algorithm (my program)
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