Regular readers will know my frustration with the Westpac Leading Index which has stopped working. There is, however, another leading index on Australia from the Conference Board that has worked better and continues to do so. It is out this morning and shows little progress in the past six months:
The two indexes share many components but the main source of difference (at a guess) is that the Westpac index includes US industrial production, whereas the Conference Board has the far more useful commodity index and hence China exposure. If you were trying to gauge the Australian economy six months ahead which do you think is more useful?
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