In yet another piece of bad economic news, the Conference Board‘s leading economic index dropped 0.7 percent in July.
The Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators saw no change in June and declined 0.1 percent in May. The Conference Board said the decline was due partly to increased unemployment and indicators suggesting slow to no growth through the rest of the year.
“A few months ago, there was some discussion about a second-half recovery,” Conference Board labor economist Ken Goldstein said in a statement. “If there’s a second-half recovery, it’ll be the second half of 2009.”
