EmailThe Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index increased 0.8% in May after declining a negatively revised 0.4% (from -0.3%) in April, which was the first decline since June 2010. The Briefing.com consensus expected the Leading Indicators Index to increase 0.4% in May.
Since 7 out of 10 components are known prior to the release of the report, the difference between the consensus and the actual data normally comes from the three estimated components. For the past several months, however, the difference has been mainly due to unexpected volatility in the building permits data (out Thursday), which are released after economists submit their forecasts.
Building permits increased substantially, whereas the consensus expected a modest decline. The increase resulted in building permits contributing 0.22 percentage points to the leading indicators index, which was nearly opposite of what the consensus forecasted.
