Economic indicators: Hot or not?

    That's where weekly numbers come in: jobless claims, weekly same-store sales and mortgage applications among them. As with employment data, a single report is of limited use, so economists typically look at 4- to 8-week moving averages of those 'weekly' numbers.

Not Hot:

    Raw Commodity Prices. One of the series that failed miserably in the last cycle was raw industrial commodities prices, says Robert J. Barbera, managing director and chief economist at ITG. At one time, the prices of commodities actually reflected demand for that particular good. More recently, says Barbera, "it became stylish in a great many pension funds not to own oil companies but to own oil." The demand among investors buoyed commodities prices even as demand from those who actually needed the products was fading. "In the first half of 2008 many economists were saying, 'This can't be a recession, commodities prices are still strong,'" Barbera says. "In fact we were six months into a recession."

    Two Journal of Commerce commodities indexes fell sharply in May, leading some remaining believers in this indicator to see bearish times ahead.

    Housing data. Once burned, twice shy. In 2007, housing was "the quintessential indicator of where we would be going," says Keith Hembre, chief economist and investment strategist at FAF Advisors, which advises the First American family of funds. Then housing indicators such as sales levels, building levels, and permits all continued to climb without the job and wage gains that were supposed to propel them. Strong housing indicators didn't mean a strong economy; they pointed to a bubble. (In April, sales of previously-owned U.S. homes rose to a five-month high) Now when economists talk about housing numbers, they're more likely to be looking at weekly mortgage applications.

Classics:

    GDP is "the mother of all economic indicators in the U.S." says Baumohl, for the simple reason that it pretty much encompasses everything else. But by the time it's released, a lot of its revelations are no longer new, greatly diminishing its predictive value. Still, the GDP is so revered, says Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the Economic Cycle Research Institute, that it allows "someone who sees a little bit of GDP growth inside a recession to take a policy position that is 100% wrong" -- such as raising interest rates. First quarter GDP rose at an annualized rate of 3%, compared with 5.6% in the last quarter of 2009.

    The yield curve is "the mac daddy of economic indicators" says Ritholtz, who says he was astonished when, in 2007, an inverted yield curve wasn't widely taken as a sign that the U.S. was headed for a recession. Hembre says that instead, many thought rates on long-term Treasurys were being kept artificially low because of purchases by the Chinese central bank. "The yield curve is a no-brainer," Ritholtz says. "Ignore it at your own risk." Now, he says, the yield curve is steep, which is consistent with the fact that the financial sector has had a good run.