{"id":16026,"date":"2014-06-19T23:08:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T15:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=16026"},"modified":"2014-07-03T17:45:11","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T09:45:11","slug":"measure-of-economys-future-health-posts-fourth-monthly-increase-rising-0-5-per-cent-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/06\/19\/measure-of-economys-future-health-posts-fourth-monthly-increase-rising-0-5-per-cent-in-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Measure of economy\u2019s future health posts fourth monthly increase, rising 0.5 per cent in May"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ShutterStock<\/a>
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WASHINGTON\u2014A gauge designed to predict the economy\u2019s future health increased for a fourth month in May, providing further evidence that the economy is gaining strength after a harsh winter caused activity to go into reverse.<\/p>\n

The Conference Board said Thursday that its index of leading indicators increased 0.5 per cent last month, an improvement from a revised 0.3 per cent gain in April. The strength was broadly based with positive contributions from all the financial and labour components of the index.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecent data suggest the economy is finally moving up from a 2 per cent growth trend to a more robust expansion,\u201d said Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein. \u201cGoing forward, the biggest challenge is to sustain the rise in income growth which will drive consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

The overall economy actually shrank at an annual rate of 1 per cent in the January-March quarter, the victim of a severe winter which crimped activity in a number of areas.<\/p>\n

But analysts believe growth rebounded strongly in the April-June quarter to possibly as much as a 4 per cent growth rate. They are forecasting a solid performance in the second half of around 3 per cent growth.<\/p>\n

The expectation is that rising employment will fuel further gains in consumer spending.<\/p>\n

The leading index is composed of 10 forward-pointing indicators. For May, seven of the 10 showed gains with the largest positive contributions coming from low interest rates, falling weekly unemployment claims and gains in manufacturing hours.<\/p>\n

The biggest negative factor holding the index back was a drop in applications for building permits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u2014A gauge designed to predict the economy\u2019s future health increased for a fourth month in May, providing further evidence that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","mauthors-martin-crutsinger","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}