Weekly Economic Index (WEI)

November 10, 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 -3.02 percent, scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, for the week ended November 7 and -2.50 percent for October 31; for reference, the WEI stood at 1.55 percent for the week ended February 29.
• The decline in the WEI for the week of November 7 (relative to the second revision for the week of October 31) is due to declines in retail sales and consumer confidence, which more than offset an increase in raw steel production, as well as data series that have recently provided more positive signals not yet being available. The WEI for the week of October 31 was revised upward due to an increase in the staffing index.
• As alternative scales, the current WEI implies a 13.8 percent decrease in IP (YoY) and a 478k employee decrease in nonfarm payroll.
• Data dashboard and .release (.pdf)
• Historical data including recent release (.xlsx)