Business Conditions Suggest U.S. Contraction a Ways Off

A U.S. economic contraction is still a ways off, judging by a subset of data in Tuesday’s Conference Board consumer confidence report. The spread of American respondents to the question of whether business conditions are good or bad shows that the former maintains a wide gap over the latter. Six of the last seven recessions were preceded by a sharp downturn in the difference between responses, and February’s data arrested the drop that began in December. For more market commentary, see the MLIV blog.