Thursday, April 9, 2020

Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

April 14, 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 -8.89 percent, scaled to 4-quarter GDP growth, for the week ending April 04 and -6.75 for the week ending March 28; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.58 for the week ending February 29.
  • Today’s decline is driven by the sustained surge in UI claims, at 6.6 million (SA), and continued collapse in fuel sales, down a further 2.5 million barrels/day. It is exacerbated by more modest decreases in rail traffic, electric output, and tax withholding. The downward revision of the WEI for the week of 3/28 is the result of today’s continuing claims data, showing 7.5 million (SA) unemployed.
  • As alternative scales, the current WEI implies a 31.60 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 1197k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll employment.
  • Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
  • Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)

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