The Economic Week Ahead: November 20-24

Happy Thanksgiving Week. Thankfully, it is a relatively slow week for economic indicators. October's Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) and the Index of Coincident Economic Indicators (CEI) (Mon) are likely to please the diehard hard-landers. The LEI is expected to be down 0.7% m/m. It has been falling since December 2021. However, over that same period, the CEI has been rising to new record highs (chart).

This time, there's a chance that the CEI will be down slightly m/m. If so, some of that weakness can be attributed to the auto strike, which depressed payroll employment, real personal income, industrial production, and real business sales. Nevertheless, there are mounting signs that economic growth is slowing during Q4, following the 4.9% jump in real GDP during Q3. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model is tracking Q4's real GDP at 2.0% currently. The Citibank Economic Surprise Index has been falling in recent days, which has been a bullish development for bonds (chart).