Flushing out leading indicators
I was recently talking with a relative who works the finance department in the waste management industry, particularly in the portable toilets you see at construction sites, events, etc. We got on the subject of the economy and he had some interesting observations.
Because so much of his business is tied into new construction, he said his business trending became a great leading indicator for the overall economy. He could see from his business trending downward in the individual new construction.
Interesting enough, with the stimulus, we will probably see this leading indicator increase because of the amount of roadwork type of projects.
The economy is full of these anecdotal leading indicators. It would be great to have BI capture and model these at a macro level.