y over June, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday. At a news conference yesterday, the CEPD reported that in July, the index of leading indicators was 146.6, up 0.3 percent from June.
The July index of coincident indicators, which coincides with the current pace of economic activity, rose one percent month-over-month to 150 points, CEPD said.
The total score of monitoring indicators for July was 29 points, up from 25 points in June.
Four of the seven leading indicators for July scored positively, namely export orders, stock performance, overtime hours in the industrial and service sectors, and real estate performance.
The three negative factors were M1B money supply, the manufacturing sector’s inventory index, and the book-to-bill ratio compiled by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, a major trade association for IC equipment manufacturers.
The CEPD used a green light to indicate the economy’s robustness. The council recently changed its signaling system. It now uses a five-level spectrum to gauge domestic economic health, with blue indicating recession, yellow-blue a slowdown, green steady growth, yellow-red a slight overheating and red an absolute overheating.
The CEPD said it has revamped its calculations for all three measures of economic development based on a methodology adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), taking effect from July 2007.
Previous data for both the index of leading indicators and the index of coincident indicators were accordingly readjusted retroactively to 1982. No retroactive adjustment was made for the monitoring indicators.
