Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

April 7, 2020

 

Daniel Lewis, New York Fed

Karel Mertens, Dallas Fed

James Stock, Harvard University

The WEI is an index of 10 weekly indicators of real economic activity, scaled to have the units of four-quarter percent change of real GDP.

• The WEI is currently -6.56 percent, scaled to 4-quarter GDP growth, for the week ending April 04; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.58 for the week ending February 29.
• Today’s decline is driven by a continued sharp decrease in raw steel production and a further fall in retail sales from the peak of early “stocking up” behavior; consumer sentiment also fell slightly lower last week. A further decline is likely on Thursday with the initial UI claims release. The WEI for March 28th was also revised downwards following a sharp decline in the index of temporary and contract employment for that week.
• As an alternative scale, the current WEI implies a 24.58 percent decrease in IP (YoY).
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)