Leading Indicators... Growing Strength

Trying to catch up news from earlier this week. It has been a quiet economic week thus far (not many economic releases), but the latest leading economic indicators shows more signs of strength. The LA Times details:

The index of U.S. leading indicators rose in March by the most in 10 months, a sign the economy will keep growing into the second half of the year.

The 1.4 percent increase in the New York-based Conference Board's measure of the outlook for three to six months was more than anticipated and followed a revised 0.4 percent gain in February.

Manufacturers are ratcheting up production and factory workers are putting in longer hours as companies rebuild inventories and ship more goods overseas. Further improvement in the job market will help sustain the economy's recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s.

"The economy really seems to be gaining momentum, with better-than-expected data coming from a wider variety of sources," said Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit. "The sectors that were doing well appear to be doing even better and those that were struggling appear to be seeing signs of renewed activity."

And the strength excluding money supply, interest rate spread, and stock prices (i.e. eliminating the pure liquidity mechanisms and/or financial assets driven by the liquidity - though an argument can be made to include all of the leading indicators as being affected).