Rear mirror view of the global economy

The OECD Composite Leading Indicators for November are out. Below are results for the world's four biggest economies. Notably, only US is growing although near stall speed.

Figure 1: OECD LEI for November 2014.

The OECD LEI is already two months old  at the time of publishing. In a sense, it gives as a rear view of what may happen. This has happened in the last two months: Ruble collapsed, oil collapsed, and other materials are in free fall. This is seen in the Global Growth Barometer below. 

Figure 2: Global Growth Barometer and SP500.

Materials and yield spread are signaling weakness. Quoting John Hussman: 

"the plunge in oil prices and safe-haven Treasury yields, coupled with the rise in yields on default-sensitive assets such as junk debt is most consistent with an abrupt slowing in global economic activity"

Note that Global Growth Barometer and SP500 have decoupled in 2014 and this decoupling has accelerated. Investors are ignoring clear signs of economic weakness, for now at least.

Global Growth Barometer signaling slowdown

Global Growth Barometer tracks the movement of most important commodities. Its correlation with the stock market is far from perfect but it still tells on interesting story:

The drop in Global Growth Barometer is the fastest since 2008. Stock market is largely brushing this off as over supply issue (as opposed to slow down in demand) but caution is in order: Usually supply movements are slow in comparison to movements in demand. Unless this time is different, the global demand is experiencing fast slowdown.