Economic Watch: Leading Indicators, E-Commerce Sales Post Impressive Gains
Three new economic reports add to increasing evidence the U.S. economy will have a better overall first quarter of the year than the final three months of 2016.
The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. increased 0.6% in January to 125.5, following a 0.5% increase in December and a 0.2% increase in November.
“If this trend continues, the U.S. economy may even accelerate in the near term.”
“The U.S. Leading Economic Index increased sharply again in January, pointing to a positive economic outlook in the first half of this year,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, director of business cycles and growth research at the private research group. “The January gain was broad-based among the leading indicators. If this trend continues, the U.S. economy may even accelerate in the near term.”
The LEI is made of 10 components, including data from manufacturing, housing and consumer expectations. The January improvement was described by Well Fargo Securities as “’broad-based with only a single component subtracting from the headline figure, non-defense capital goods minus aircraft.”
E-Commerce Sales Jump
A separate report from the Commerce Department showed e-commerce sales increased in both the fourth quarter of 2016 and for all of last year.
They rose 1.9% in the final three months of 2016 from the third quarter. The fourth quarter 2016 e-commerce estimate was up 14.3% from the same time in 2015, far outpacing the 4.1% hike in total retail sales during the same period.
Total e-commerce for 2016 was at $394.9 billion, an increase of 15.1% from 2015, while total retail sales in 2016 increased 2.9%. E-commerce sales in 2016 accounted for 8.1% of total sales, up from 7.3% in 2015.
According to some analysts and recent reports, the increasing rise of e-commerce has already led to changes in how the trucking industry does business and is expected to bring …Read the rest of this story
