Unusual Economic Indicators -- Forklifts, underwear and Chocolate

[steven johnson]

Sometimes you can miss the forest for the trees and sometimes the trees indicate the health of the forest. Here are some unusual economic indicators predicting whether the economy is turning around:

Hemline/Skirt Length Indicator
The Boston Snow Indicator
Super Bowl Indicator
Billboard Top 100 Indicator
Lipstick Indicator/Lipstick Effect
Harvard MBA Indicator
January Effect
Aspirin Count Indicator
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover
Pallet/Cardboard Box Indicator
The Big Mac Index

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29257460

Cocoa commodity prices

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081125172041.aspx

Diamond prices
Champagne sales

http://blogs.dailypennsylvanian.com/thebottomline/2009/03/30/secret-economic-indicators/comment-page-1/

Men's underwear sales

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7305537&page=1

Forklift sales

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/forklifts-point-to-recovery-unusual-economic-indicators-are-proving-popular-as-official-figures-falter-1467030.html

[BeFree]

1. Well

When it's all a house of cards, such things could tell you which way the wind is blowing and how hard.

[Warpy]

2. My own index is a little different

Dollar Store parking lot index
Thrift shop crowd index
Food pantry line index
Shantytown index

I'm afraid all those are continuing to rise around here, so it'll be a while before anything decent happens to those of us on the bottom.

As for the CNBC article, no wonder they've been so consistently lousy at predicting anything. 7 of the "indicators" were simple coincidence, and the other 4 are things that typically follow the market, not indicate where it is likely to go in the future.

And their website, crammed with advertising that cause pages to load slowly on DSL, SUCKS.

[madrchsod]

3. my index

amount of cars in the walmart parking lot

expensive cars/trucks at the dollar stores

the amount of expensive clothes in plato`s closet

expensive cars/trucks at the thrift shops

the miles of roads that are turning into gravel