ECRI leading indicator plunges to -6.9%

It's getting close: the fabled -10% annualized change which guarantees a recession is now just 3.1% away, which at this rate of collapse will be breached in two weeks. The ECRI is now at December 2007 levels, the time when the last recession officially started. The index dropped from an annualized revised -5.8% (previously -5.7%) to -6.9%. As a reminder, from Rosie, "It is one thing to slip to or fractionally below the zero line, but a -3.5% reading has only sent off two head-fakes in the past, while accurately foreshadowing seven recessions — with a three month lag. Keep your eye on the -10 threshold, for at that level, the economy has gone into recession … only 100% of the time (42 years of data)." We are practically there.


from zerohedge


And then we get the UMichigan consumer confidence of 76.  WTF???  How consumer confidence in May was the highest in over two years,  higher than April's already ludicrous 73.6, and highest since January 2008, is not even worthy of commentary. It must have been the flash crash, the BP oilspill catastrophe, the market's 16% drop and Europe's bankruptcy that really pushed consumer confidence to that near record level... Just who do these people call to "gauge" confidence anyway?