We have discussed the exuberance and dysphoria that is exhibited by economists in the context of extrapolating trends many times and nowhere is that more clearly pictured than in Citigroup's Economic Surprise Index which tracks the rise and fall of both misses and beats as well as better or worse data. For the first time in over six months, macro data for the G-10 has turned negative (with Europe having been there for a while and the US getting very close) indicating significant weakness. When this data turned from positive to negative in July 2010 it pre-empted the 'rescue' of the global economy via QE2 and each time it has dropped below its 200DMA (which it also just did) we have seen notable deterioration in equity prices soon after. What is more worrisome perhaps is the rate of deterioration over the last two months or so. Four of the last five times we dropped this rapidly we saw significant drops in stock prices soon after (Dec 2008, August 2010, and June 2011). Europe and the US are now trending lower in macro data 'surprises' as decoupling disappears but the US remains a little less bad for those looking for silver-linings - for now.
G-10 macro data has turned negative (upper pane) dropped below its 200DMA and is at its lowest in over six months. The pace of deterioration has been rapid (lower pane) and 4 of the previous 5 times this pace of drop has occurred, equity prices have dropped considerably soon after...
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US and Europe are now back in sync as decoupling becomes a dim and distant memory though on the bright side we are not missing as badly as Europe...
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and in case you were wondering how well this syncs with stock performance, her is the US-only Citi ECO surprise index relative to 3 month changes in the S&P 500...
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Charts: Bloomberg