Read level and direction together
Level and direction answer different questions. A leading indicator below 100 can be rising; confidence above its own average can be falling. Read both before deciding whether the backdrop for a market is strengthening. This board covers 53 economies or areas with at least one stored OECD or European Commission reading; coverage varies by indicator. See also forecasts and the release calendar.
At/above trend, rising — CLI ≥100, positive momentum
At/above trend, falling — CLI ≥100, negative momentum
Below trend, falling — CLI <100, negative momentum
Below trend, rising — CLI <100, positive momentum
Newest reference month anywhere on this board: September 2026. Individual metrics may be older; their months appear beside each reading.
Four indicators, four different readings
CLI: the OECD Composite Leading Indicator combines economic signals to anticipate turning points relative to a trend. Its amplitude-adjusted baseline is 100. Below that line means below trend, which can coexist with positive output growth. It does not establish a recession or give a numeric GDP growth forecast. OECD CLI guidance.
Business confidence: the OECD BCI uses manufacturing survey responses about production, orders and finished-goods stocks. Its baseline of 100 is a long-term confidence average. It does not cover every service, construction or retail business. OECD BCI definition.
Consumer confidence: the OECD CCI summarizes households' expectations relevant to spending and saving. Its values are standardized around 100; 102 is not a claim that 102% of households are optimistic or that consumption will grow by 2%. OECD CCI definition.
EC sentiment: the European Commission ESI combines business and consumer surveys on a scale with a long-term mean of 100 and standard deviation of 10. It uses a different construction from the OECD series. Do not average their levels or interpret an identical point change as an identical economic shock. Commission methodology.
Worked example: a rising signal below trend
Take an illustrative CLI of 99.4, compared with 99.0 three months earlier. Momentum is +0.4 index points. The label is “Below trend, rising”: the signal is improving, but has not crossed 100. A different economy at 100.6 after 101.0 gets “At/above trend, falling.” Ranking by the latest level alone would place the second economy first while concealing the opposite directions.
For a business planning brief, treat a consistent rise as a reason to investigate demand, orders and inventories. Confirm the signal with observed output and your sector's evidence. If business and household confidence disagree, describe that split rather than force it into an economy-wide verdict. Compare reference months before attributing the disagreement to behavior.
The exact SOTW calculation
For each geography and series, take the latest finite stored reading in the 900-day retrieval window. The Δ column is the latest value minus the value in the exact preceding calendar month. If that month is missing, Δ stays blank. CLI momentum uses the value three calendar months earlier; if unavailable, it uses the exact preceding month. The label combines momentum's sign with a level at/above 100 or below 100. Missing or exactly zero momentum receives no directional label.
The sparkline shows only CLI, using up to 24 consecutive monthly readings and stopping at a gap. Its shape does not encode forecast probabilities. Labels use unrounded values, while table levels and changes display one decimal; a small change can round to 0.0. Color thresholds are display conventions, not significance tests.
The displayed dates identify reference months, not release dates. Stored readings can be revised, and this comparison does not retain a publication vintage for each cell. For reproducible analysis, retain series IDs (OECD.CLI.M, OECD.BCI.M, OECD.CCI.M, EUROSTAT.ESI.M), geography, reference month, raw value and retrieval date. Consult the API documentation for access and source-specific reuse notices.