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Global Leading Indicators, February 2026 - Upturn confirmed; will it slip in rising oil prices?

The February update of the global LEI chartbook confirms that a broad-based upturn in global cyclical activity has been underway since the end of the third quarter last year. Granted, the number of LEIs currently in expansion—16—is slightly lower than at previous cyclical peaks. However, the February update and revisions point to a stabilising expansion at this rate, which remains robust overall.

The big question now is whether the upturn will falter in the face of the energy price shock ignited by the war in Iran.

Time will tell.

Global Leading Indicators, January 2026 - As good as it gets

I told you that I have a knack for updating these chartbooks at potential turning points—more specifically, whenever Mr. Trump decides to give his tariff Wheel of Fortune a spin. The ink had barely dried on the US Supreme Court’s decision ruling against the legality of Mr. Trump’s tariffs before the president vowed to impose an additional 10% tariff on top of the existing measures, later raising that figure to 15%. No one—least of all the president himself—knows whether these new tariffs will actually be implemented, or indeed what they would be applied to, given that the original tariffs are now supposedly illegal. It is little wonder that markets initially shrugged off the news on Friday. Then there is Iran, and the prospect of a sustained rise in oil prices. I am not perturbed by either development, though I would not wish to spend the next few days at an Iranian military installation, all the same.

The message from leading indicators is one of a broad-based and strengthening recovery in the global economy at the start of 2026, pointing to at least six months of robust coincident data ahead. With inflation still relatively benign in most key markets—for now—and further monetary easing in the pipeline from both the Fed and the BOE, the near-term outlook could be worse—much worse. Indeed, one could argue that, as far as global leading indicators are concerned, the current synchronised upturn depicted below—with China as the notable laggard—is about as good as it gets.

Global Leading Indicators, December 2025 - Broad-based strength

The disconnect between momentum in global macroeconomic leading indicators, benign conditions in financial markets, and volatile global geopolitics could hardly be greater at the moment. Granted, leading indicators will always lag the latest gyrations in global geopolitics—especially in a world where Mr. Trump is conducting the orchestra—but judging by the past 12 months, not even the potential collapse of NATO or a full-blown EU–U.S. trade war will knock risk assets off course for more than a few minutes. That is not because such events would lack significance, but because markets are now deeply wedded to the idea that Mr. Trump’s bark—on tariffs and otherwise—is much worse than his bite. Time, as always, will tell. The fundamental problem for markets is that lofty valuations and generally exuberant investor sentiment mean that any repricing in response to a less optimistic view of the world would be violent.

Global Economyclaus vistesenJanuary 19, 2026leading indicators, Greenland, Donald Trump, Denmark

Global Leading Indicators, October 2025 - In the Pipe, Five by Five

Equities have wobbled a bit recently, without any obvious catalyst, aside from the most apparent one: they’re expensive by nearly all historical valuation measures. Many investors now appear concerned that the end of the U.S. government shutdown will trigger a deluge of data, potentially revealing that the economy is weaker than expected. That fear, however, doesn’t quite align with the sell-off in the December 2025 SOFR contract, which is casting doubt on what had once seemed a near-certain Fed rate cut in December.

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