Conference Board Coincident Economic Index

What Is the CEI?

The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index (CEI) is a monthly composite of four contemporaneous business-cycle indicators: nonfarm payroll employment, personal income less transfer payments, industrial production, and manufacturing and trade sales. The Conference Board aggregates these into a single weighted composite that is scaled to peak at 100 in 2016.

The four CEI components are also the four primary indicators the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee uses to date recessions. The CEI is a real-time proxy for the NBER analysis.

Why It Matters for Markets

The CEI is the cleanest single confirmation of business-cycle phase. When the CEI is rising, the economy is in expansion; when it is falling for sustained periods (typically 6+ months), it signals recession. Combined with the Leading Economic Index, the CEI provides the most complete business-cycle picture available.

For markets, the CEI release is tier-2 because most components are released individually before the composite. The Fed and forecasters use it for cross-checking individual indicators and confirming business-cycle phase.

How to Read the Print

Month-over-month change. The most useful high-frequency signal. Sustained negative readings (6+ months) signal recession.

Year-over-year change. Captures the broad trend. YoY changes around 2-3% are consistent with normal expansions; YoY changes below zero coincide with NBER-dated recessions.

Four-component breakdown. The CEI publishes contributions from each component. Imbalances reveal dynamics: employment-led expansions versus production-led expansions have different durations and macro implications.

Relationship to LEI. When the LEI is falling but the CEI is still rising, the leading signals are deteriorating but the economy has not yet rolled over. This was the pattern through much of 2022-2024 — LEI fell for 24 consecutive months while CEI kept grinding higher.

Historical Context

CEI data go back to 1959. The 2010-2019 expansion produced a steady CEI rise from 99 to 116. The pandemic shock dropped the CEI from 116 in February 2020 to 95 in April 2020, the steepest peak-to-trough decline in the data series.

Through 2024-2025, the CEI has continued to rise modestly each month, consistent with the soft-landing pattern. The continued rise alongside the negative LEI trajectory has been the defining business-cycle puzzle of 2022-2025: forward indicators signalled recession risk, but contemporaneous indicators showed continued expansion. The eventual resolution — recession or extended expansion — will be the verdict on which signal was correct.