R.I.’s leading indicators flat

By Kimberley Donoghue
PBN Web Editor
Twitter: @kdonog

PROVIDENCE – An index of Rhode Island’s leading economic indicators stayed flat in June, with an increase of just 0.04 percent. In May, the index grew 0.7 percent from a month earlier.

The Providence Business News/e-forecasting.com index for the state reached 118.6 in June. A reading of 100 is equivalent to the state’s economic activity in 2000.

The leading indicators index uses nine published statistics to forecast the direction of the state’s economy over the next three to six months, with positive numbers signaling growth and negative numbers signaling contraction.

In June, four of the nine components made positive contributions to the index: unemployment claims, weekly hours in manufacturing, manufactured exports, and the interest rate spread.

The five components contributing negatively to the index were: building permits, regional consumer expectations, national stock prices, national orders index, and the state employment barometer.

The six-month, annualized growth rate, a signal of turning points, went up by an annual rate of 7.8 percent in June, after an increase of 8.9 percent in May.

This compares with a long-term annual growth rate of 1.8 percent, the same as the annual growth rate of the state’s overall economic activity.