Pat Maio North County Times
01.13.2012
Trucking activity rose slightly in December, but not enough to offset very weak trucking last summer that ultimately led to lower movement of goods in all of 2011 versus 2010, according to an economic index released this week.
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Kelly Evans The Wall Street Journal
01.12.2012
They're spending; they're not. They're spending; they're not. It hasn't been easy lately to pin down the trajectory of consumer spending, which, after all, still is the single biggest part of the U.S. economy. One minute consumer credit is jumping, the next holiday sales disappoint. One minute retailers are raising earnings targets, the next they're pulling in their horns.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
01.11.2012
In conjunction with slight ongoing signs that economic improvement is happening, the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) showed positive growth for the third straight month in December. December’s PCI was up 0.2 percent, following increases of 0.1 percent and 1.1 percent in November and October, respectively. The PCI has now been up in five of the past ten months.
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Geert De Lombaerde Nashville Post
12.14.2011
Economic activity in the Kentucky-Tennessee-Alabama-Mississippi region rose for the second straight month in November, based on trucking activity, suggesting we're wrapping up 2011 on the front foot. That trailed only the Mountain West and Mid-Atlantic.
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Ian McKendry Market News
12.13.2011
The flow of goods to U.S. factories, retailers and consumers increased 0.1% in November, following a 1.1% increase in October, data from the trucking industry showed Tuesday.
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Kathleen Hays Bloomberg Radio – The Hays Advantage
11.11.2011
After three straight months of decline, the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index showed a ray of sunshine in October. Will the trend continue? Professor Ed Leamer discusses the 1.1% growth from October.
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Brad Allen Minneapolis Post
11.11.2011
The holiday shopping stakes are high, going into the traditional post-Thanksgiving “Black Friday” kickoff , and local retailers are poised to be big players. With consumer spending historically accounting for 60 percent or more of the U.S. economy, has consumer confidence healed enough to keep the economy in anemic but positive growth?
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Geert De Lombaerde Nashville Post
11.10.2011
After a four-month streak of shrinkage, the four-state region that includes Tennessee posted stronger trucking activity in October, suggesting 2011 may end on an upbeat economic note.
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Jack Katzanek The Press-Enterprise
11.10.2011
Truck drivers pulled out their debit cards to buy more fuel in October, especially on the West Coast, according to a report released earlier this week.
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Dean Calbreath San Diego Union-Tribune
11.09.2011
An index designed to monitor economic activity rose slightly in October after three months of decline, signaling that the economy could dodge a double-dip recession.
On the other hand, UCLA economist Ed Leamer - who developed the index - cautioned against reading too much into a single month's worth of data.
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Pat Maio North County Times
11.09.2011
Just a month ago, Leamer had worried that trucking activity in the United States might be signaling that the economy is headed into a recession in the next few months. That concern seems to have evaporated with the release of the latest Pulse of Commerce Index.
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Ian McKendry Market News International
11.09.2011
There was an increase in the flow of goods to U.S. factories, retailers and consumers in October, slightly offsetting declines seen in September and August, data from the trucking industry showed Wednesday
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Mark Davis The Kansas City Star
10.24.2011
If you don’t need a weatherman to know it stopped raining, will you need an economist to know when these hard times finally soften? Maybe not. Evidence about the health of the economy surrounds us daily, if we just bother to look.
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Daniel Fischer Forbes
10.18.2011
If the country is in a economic recovery mode, the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index sure doesn’t show it. The index, based on diesel fuel purchases by thousands of truckers around the country, fell roughly 1% in September, equivalent to a 10% annual contraction. Coming after a 1.4% decline in August and 0.2% decline in July, the index suggests trucks are carrying fewer goods to market even as retailers should be increasing their inventories in anticipation of the holidays.
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Sandra Ward & Leslie P. Norton Barrons
10.15.2011
Don't look now, but a recent gauge of the economy is sending some worrying signals to the economist who helped create it. In September, the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which tracks real-time trucking activity, fell for the third month in a row, this time by 1%.
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Natalie Doss Bloomberg
10.12.2011
U.S. truckers’ fuel purchases dropped the most in the three months through September of any quarter in the past 10 years, excluding recessions, as deliveries slowed to retailers, factories and consumers.
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Pat Maio North County Times
10.12.2011
Trucking activity in the United States may be signaling that the economy is headed into a recession in the next few months, though California may dodge a more severe downturn, according to an economic index released Wednesday.
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Allison Linn MSNBC.com
09.13.2011
An unusual index of economic activity — diesel fuel sales — is offering further proof that the economy is stumbling along without offering much hope for improvement.
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Sean Kilcarr Fleet Owner
09.13.2011
While the data behind the monthly Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) still doesn’t indicate a “double dip” recession is drawing near, it clearly indicates that the U.S. economy is going to stay sluggish for some time, with subpar gross domestic product (GDP) definitely affecting freight volumes.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
09.13.2011
The uneven trajectory of the economic recovery was highlighted once again in the most recent edition of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) Index. The PCI was down 1.2 percent in August, following a 0.2 percent slide in July. The PCI was up 1.0 percent in June, following consecutive declines in April and May. Aside from June the only other month in which the PCI has showed growth was March, which was up 2.7 percent.
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Robin Blumenthal Barron's
09.03.2011
Investors alarmed by August's downbeat jobs report, as well as the Philly Fed index and consumer-confidence gauges, could be forgiven for worrying that the economy is sliding into a double-dip recession. But according to Ed Leamer, an economics professor at UCLA and chief economist for the Pulse of Commerce Index, their fears are misplaced.
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Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal Robin Blumenthal Barron’s
08.15.2011
Tuesday 16: Industrial production should remain flat for July, says Ed Leamer, chief economist for the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index. "We don't see a real recession in the offing."
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Sean Kilcarr Fleet Owner
08.10.2011
The 0.2% dip in the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) during July after a 1% gain in June indicates that “wobbly, slow growth” should be expected for the U.S. economy for the rest of 2011.
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Peter Coy Bloomberg Businessweek
08.10.2011
In America’s unenlightened past, men who couldn’t pay their debts were imprisoned. Languishing behind bars deprived them of any chance to repay their creditors, so the practice was stupid as well as cruel.
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Pat Maio North County Times
08.10.2011
Trucking activity skidded in July in California as inventory rebuilding in anticipation of seasonal back-to-school sales slowed and job growth cooled off, according to an economic index released Wednesday.
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Steve Goldstein MarketWatch
08.10.2011
July industrial production is likely to be flat, according to a forecast derived from the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce index, which is based on real-time diesel fuel consumption data for over the road trucking.
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Alana Semuels and Andrew Khouri Los Angeles Times
08.09.2011
Volatile financial markets and high unemployment suggest consumer spending will stay subdued for the foreseeable future. Businesses, in turn, would be reluctant to hire.
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Colin Barr Fortune.com
07.13.2011
The economy certainly isn't rolling, but it also isn't rolling over just yet. That's the message out of the latest reading of the Pulse of Commerce Index published by UCLA and data company Ceridian. The PCI, which tracks U.S. diesel fuel use and offers a view into industrial output via trucking mileage, rose 1% in June on a seasonally adjusted basis.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
07.13.2011
Evidence regarding the uneven economic recovery remains apparent, according to the most recent results of the June edition of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) Index.
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Colin Barr Fortune.com
06.08.2011
The recovery is over. So says UCLA economist Ed Leamer. He notes that May brought the first year-over-year decline in the Pulse of Commerce Index of domestic diesel fuel use since the end of 2009 – the latest yellow flag to be raised over the sputtering U.S. economy
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Pat Maio North County Times
06.08.2011
Trucking activity declined in May in California as the economy slipped into an "idling" stage, stalling principally as trade through major ports on the West Coast has slowed, according to an economic index released Wednesday.
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Brad Allen MinnPost.com
06.08.2011
As a further indication of anemic economic growth, an index tracking movement of goods on the nation’s highways fell 0.9 percent in May, after falling 0.5 percent in April.
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Kathleen Hays Bloomberg Radio – The Hays Advantage
06.08.2011
Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA-Anderson Forecast, talks with Kathleen Hays about the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which fell in May.
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Ian McKendry Market News International
06.08.2011
The flow of goods to U.S. factories, retailers and consumers declined in May as higher fuel prices slowed demand for product, data from the trucking industry indicated Wednesday.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
05.13.2011
On the heels on a 2.7 percent gain in March, following a cumulative 2.8 percent decline in January and February, the April edition of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) was down 0.5 percent.
The PCI has been down on a sequential basis in six of the last nine months, but it was up 3.5 percent compared to April 2010 and has been up annually for 17 consecutive months.
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Colin Barr Fortune.com
05.11.2011
High oil prices aren't hitting the economy as hard as you might expect.
That's one conclusion of the latest reading of the Pulse of Commerce Index, the monthly report on U.S. diesel fuel usage issued by UCLA and data company Ceridian.
The index fell 0.5% from March levels in April but posted its 17th straight year-on-year gain.The results, says UCLA economist Ed Leamer, are surprising mostly in how little of March's robust 2.7% gain was lost during a month in which the average U.S. gas price was $3.80 a gallon, according to Fed data.
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Pat Maio North County Times
05.11.2011
Trucking activity declined significantly in April in California, as worries about rising diesel fuel prices and emerging trends of falling imports...
...after a month when it rebounded to its highest level since summer 2008...
... It might also be the first to signal a little bit of slowdown," said Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast.
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Ian McKendry iMarketnews.com
05.11.2011
The flow of goods to U.S factories, retailers and consumers slowed in the month of April as economic growth remains tepid, data from the trucking industry indicated Wednesday.
The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which tracks diesel fuel purchases by over the road trucks, fell 0.5% seasonally adjusted in April after posting a 2.7% gain in March
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Pat Maio North County Times
04.13.2011
Trucking activity declined in March in California as worries about rising diesel fuel prices and a sluggish state economy continued to outpace the rest of the nation, according to an economic index released Tuesday... The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index is a measure of the flow of goods to U.S. factories, retailers and consumers... The index showed that the Pacific Coast (California, Oregon and Washington) rose to 103.68 in March, up 1.5 points from 102.18 in February...
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Jeff Berman Supply Chain Management Review
04.13.2011
Following a cumulative 1.8 percent decline in January and February, the March edition of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) was up 2.7 percent in March.
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Colin Barr Fortune
04.12.2011
The economy may not be as vulnerable to $110 oil as you might imagine.
That's one message out of the latest Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index. The index rose 2.7% in March, wiping out declines in the first two months of 2011 and suggesting a modest economic recovery remains on track, in spite of the soaring price at the pump.
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Bloomberg Radio – Hays Advantage
04.12.2011
Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA-Anderson Forecast, talks with Kathleen Hays about the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which rose in March for the sixteenth straight month of year over year growth.
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Moneynews.com
04.12.2011
The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, a real-time measure of the flow of goods to U.S. factories, retailers and consumers, rose 2.7 percent in March, more than offsetting the 0.3 percent decline in January and the 1.5 percent decline in February.
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Evan Applegate Bloomberg Businessweek
03.31.2011
Ceridian-UCLA's Pulse of Commerce Index measures economic activity via long-haul truckers' use of Ceridian's fuel cards.
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Betty Beard The Arizona Republic
03.18.2011
Sales of diesel fuel have been bouncing up and down since last summer, indicating that the economy's growth was already fragile before oil prices began rising in recent weeks.
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Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal Barron's
03.12.2011
Thursday 17: In a departure from the consensus, industrial production is seen flat in February by Ed Leamer, chief economist of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce index. The good news? "Firms are going to have to ramp up production soon."
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The Hays Advantage
03.10.2011
Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, talks about the UCLA-Ceridian index, which tracks U.S. commerce, with Sara Eisen and Joseph Brusuelas, in for Kathleen Hays.
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Colin Barr Fortune
03.09.2011
But Leamer says the data collected by UCLA and Ceridian don't bear that out. ... weather was not the major reason for the decline in the PCI this month. ...
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Pat Maio North County Times
03.09.2011
Trucking activity declined in February in California as worries about rising diesel fuel prices began to crop up, according to an economic index released Wednesday.
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Brad Allen MinnPost
03.09.2011
A measure of the flow of goods to U.S. factories, retailers and consumers by Minneapolis-based Ceridian Corp. points to a slow start for the year and shows the fragility of the economic recovery.
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Robin Goldwyn Blumenthal Barron’s
02.14.2011
Wednesday 16: Industrial production should rise 0.3% in January, says Ed Leamer, chief economist of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which also pointed to stronger inventory numbers.
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The Hays Advantage
02.09.2011
Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA-Anderson Forecast, talks with Kathleen Hays about the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which rose in January for the fourteenth straight month of year over year growth.
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Robin Harding Financial Times
01.24.2011
… Mr Leamer tracks spending on credit cards used by truckers to buy fuel, giving a real-time measure of economic activity. His Ceridian-UCLA index of trucking rose 2.4 per cent in December. But most of the rise came between Christmas and the new year.
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Colin Barr Fortune
01.11.2011
The PCI rose 2.4% in December to a 2010 high, UCLA and Ceridian said. The surge corresponds to a surge in retail activity around the holidays, particularly in the week between Christmas and New Year's.
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Sean Kilcarr Fleet Owner
12.07.2010
Reports on several respected measures of economic activity in the U.S. indicate the ongoing recovery may be weaker than expected—but they also show motor carriers overall continues to perform well. The key with these reports is to understand the good news for trucking is in the details.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
12.07.2010
The most recent Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) was up 0.4 percent in November, marking its first sign of positive growth in four months. The PCI was down 0.6 percent in October and 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent in September and August, respectively.
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Kelly Evans The Wall Street Journal
12.07.2010
An index that uses diesel-fuel consumption as a proxy for economic activity has a good track record of signaling economic turning points.Take the little-known Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, out Tuesday, which uses diesel-fuel consumption as a proxy for economic activity. The seasonally adjusted index will show a small uptick in November following three straight monthly declines. Unfortunately, the 0.4% gain isn't enough to reverse the prior month's decline—or to break its downward momentum.
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The Economist
11.11.2010
… Ceridian, which manages payments made by businesses via the web or with stored-value cards, tracks aggregate purchases of diesel fuel by truck drivers in real time. Together with the UCLA Anderson School of Management, it has used these data to create an index to gauge what is happening to shipments of goods by road in America.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
11.10.2010
Like in previous months, stagnant freight volumes, especially on the trucking side, appear to be the norm, according to the most recent Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI), which reported a 0.6 percent decline in October.
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Geert De Lombaerde NashvillePost.com
11.10.2010
The team that puts together the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index says “the malaise that set in this summer is still very much with us” heading into the holiday season. Their national indicator fell 0.6 percent in October. The four-state East South Central region that has Nashville at its core fell even more.
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Sean Kilcarr FleetOwner
11.09.2010
A steady five-month drop in freight traffic as measured by the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) indicates that U.S. economic activity is stalling out as 2010 comes to a close. However, the economist tracking the PCI stressed that this does not indicate a feared “double dip” recession is on the horizon.
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Tanya Mannes San Diego Union-Tribune
11.09.2010
There are more trucks on the road shipping goods compared to last year, but a consecutive three-month decline in activity has raised fears that retailers are holding back on ordering merchandise for the holiday season.
However, the Pacific region, which includes California, seems to be doing better than the nation with modest month-over-month growth.
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William B. Cassidy The Journal of Commerce
11.09.2010
Third straight monthly decline warns of weak holiday shipping, sales
The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index fell 0.6 percent in October, pointing to a drop in trucking activity in what's typically a strong month for truck traffic.
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Brad Allen MinnPost
09.15.2010
Minneapolis-based Ceridian announced that its Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI), issued by the UCLA Anderson School of Management, fell 1 percent in August from July, though it was up 6 percent year over year. The index, which monitors diesel fuel purchases by fleet trucks moving goods over the nation’s highways, tracks the Federal Reserve’s monthly Industrial Production (IP) index. The PCI is projecting essentially no growth in the production index.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
09.15.2010
Following a nearly 2 percent gain in July, the results from the most recent Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) took a slight dip in August, falling 1.0 percent...“These results could be viewed as an unimpressive economic recovery, which has been occurring for most of the year from a PCI standpoint,” said Todd Dooley, senior vice president of finance for Ceridian, in an interview. “As things stand, growth is not sufficient enough to put many people back to work.”
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Geert De Lombaerde Nashville Post
09.15.2010
The latest Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index shows economic activity in the Kentucky-Tennessee-Alabama-Mississippi region was essentially flat in August. That’s similar to July’s number but much better in relation to trends in other parts of the country.
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Betty Beard Arizona Republic
09.12.2010
Another way to assess how freight traffic is doing is to track actual diesel-fuel purchases by truckers. The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which does that, showed that for the first eight months of the year, sales of gas were higher than their 2009 levels. In July, they were 8 percent ahead.
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Ian McGugan The Globe and Mail
08.22.2010
The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which measures the strength of the U.S. economy by looking at trucking activity, flashed positive last month, registering an increase that is in line with robust growth.
That positive indicator doesn’t mean that a boom is ahead, but it does suggest that dire predictions of disaster should be put to one side.
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Brad Allen MinnPost
08.19.2010
In other recent economic news, Minneapolis-based Ceridian Corp.’s Pulse of Commerce Index, based on diesel fuel purchases by trucking companies, climbed 1.7 percent after dropping 1.9 percent in June.
Ceridian, which is positioning the PCI index as a leading economic indicator, pointed to the June PCI, which forecast second-quarter GDP growth of 2.5 percent, closely matching the federal government’s initial Q2 estimate of 2.4 percent growth. The latest PCI results suggest GDP growth of 4 percent in Q3, but only if the momentum continues.
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Jeff Berman Logistics Management
08.12.2010
As LM reported last month, June’s PCI decline was due, in part, to a late Memorial Day holiday leading to a sluggish first half of the month, followed by a strong second half of June. Todd Dooley, senior vice president of finance for Ceridian, told LM that Memorial Day was on the latest date in May it has for the last ten years, coupled with trucking activity around Memorial Day slowing down for about a week to ten days, which negatively impacted June’s results.
July’s PCI, on the other hand, was up 8 percent year-over-year and represents the eighth straight month of mid-to-high single digit growth after two years of declines, according to Ceridian and UCLA. But the report said annual growth of 10-to-15 percent is needed to truly drive an increase in employment.
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Brad Allen MinnPost.com
07.15.2010
Minneapolis-based Ceridian Corp. released its Pulse of Commerce Index, based on diesel fuel purchases by trucking companies, which showed a 1.9 percent decline, erasing most of May’s 3.1 percent gain.
PCI chief economist Ed Leamer, however, said that it is not a harbinger of a double-dip recession because of the late Memorial Day holiday, which affected trucking activity in the first week of June. The month finished strong, raising hopes for a strong July, according to the Ceridian release.
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Rex Nutting MarketWatch
07.13.2010
Consumption of diesel fuel by U.S. trucking companies dropped sharply during June after having risen in May, but analysts said this reflected a decline usually seen around the Memorial Day holiday.
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Jim Hammerand Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
07.13.2010
An economic indicator based on trucking activity lost ground in June but may still hold good news for those worried about a second recession. PCI Chief Economist Edward Leamer said the losses are not signs of an impending double-dip recession. The adjusted index for June was 109.31, down 1.9 percent from May's 111.43. Of the United States' nine regions, only New England posted a gain last month.
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David Bogoslaw Bloomberg Businessweek / CIO Today
06.17.2010
From trainloads of trash to diesel fill-ups by truckers, lesser-known economic data that show the supply chain in action could be pointing to a stronger-than-expected economic recovery for the United States. The technology industry continues to demonstrate greater strength than many other parts of the economy, with a rebound in activity.
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David Bogoslaw Bloomberg Businessweek / MSNBC
06.16.2010
One of the more intriguing shadow metrics is the Pulse of Commerce Index, or PCI, a joint project of Ceridian Corp., a consumer services outfit, and the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles. The index climbed 3.1 percent in May from April, the largest monthly increase since February 1999. The PCI uses a very specific industrial measure to represent the overall strength of the broader U.S. economy: diesel fuel sales at roughly 7,000 truck stops across the country. If you think of the interstate highways crisscrossing the country as the arteries of the U.S. manufacturing economy, "the goods flowing in those arteries are the lifeblood of the system," says Ed Leamer, chief economist for the Ceridian-UCLA PCI. "This is the supply chain in operation."
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Daniel Gross Newsweek
05.14.2010
Ceridian's ComData unit manages payment cards for trucking companies—drivers use them to fill up on diesel at giant truck stops. As a result, it has a pretty good idea of how much diesel is being purchased by professional truckers on any given day. Professor Ed Leamer of UCLA, who helped create the index, had a "Eureka!" moment when he looked at the points of purchase on the map overlaid on the Interstate Highway System.
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Brad Allen MinnPost.com
05.12.2010
The economic recovery may be waiting for consumer spending to pull it out of a stall, according to Minneapolis-based Ceridian Corp.’s latest economic index, which tracks movement of goods around the country. The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI), issued by the UCLA Anderson School of Management this morning, fell 0.3 percent from March to April and is showing flat overall performance during the first four months of 2010, said Todd Dooley, senior vice president of finance for Ceridian and one of the developers of the index.
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Editorial Staff Supply & Demand Chain Executive
05.12.2010
With the release of April's figures, the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI) by UCLA Anderson School of Management is showing flat overall performance during the first four months of 2010, suggesting that the U.S. economic recovery has stalled. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported that its Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI) rose 0.9 percent in March from its February level, rising for the third consecutive month. The March Freight TSI rose 2.6 percent from March 2009, the first year-to-year increase in the freight index since July 2008.
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Jack Katzanek The Press-Enterprise
05.11.2010
Southern California's ports should enjoy double-digit growth this year and some steady gains for the next several years, which would be good news for the logistics and trucking industries, a forecast scheduled to be released today found. However, a separate report suggests that the trucking industry hit a bad patch in April, especially on the West Coast. UCLA's monthly Ceridian-Pulse of Commerce Index, which tracks how much is spent on diesel fuel, has essentially been flat this year, economists at the school said.
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Mark B. Solomon DC Velocity
04.16.2010
A new index that measures economic activity by tracking diesel fuel purchases by the nation's over-the-road truck drivers has contributed to the mounting body of evidence that the economy is in steady recovery. The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI), published by the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, analyzes data from fuel credit cards swiped by drivers as they fill their rigs. The index, which launched in February, is built through capturing and analyzing the location and volume of fuel being purchased. UCLA and Ceridian, the company that tracks the consumption data in real time, believe the index paints an accurate picture of product movement across the United States and thus, provides a clear window on overall economic performance.
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Courtney Schlisserman Bloomberg
04.14.2010
The amount of diesel fuel bought using credit cards at U.S. truck stops increased in March to the highest level in more than a year, indicating the recovery is broadening beyond manufacturing.The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, which measures fuel consumption, rose 1 percent last month to reach the highest level since September 2008, a report yesterday should. The gauge has increased every month since November with the exception of February, when East Coast blizzards hampered travel.
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Paul R. La Monica CNNMoney.com
04.14.2010
"It was Shakespeare who wrote that when home prices are declining, neither a borrower nor a lender be," joked Edward Leamer, chief economist for the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index and professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Simply put, many consumers just aren't buying the notion that the economy is getting better. For many, the stock market rally does not make their daily lives any easier. Consumers are more interested in the job market improving than the Dow or S&P 500 hitting highs.
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Camille Drummond Reuters
04.13.2010
The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI), produced by the UCLA Anderson School of Management, rose 1.0 percent in March after a 0.7 percent decline in February, which was largely due to snowstorms and fewer workdays, said Professor Edward Leamer, the study's chief economist.
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Leslie Brooks Suzukamo Pioneer Press
04.12.2010
The nation's economy rebounded last month from a February slump, but not enough to make a dent in the nation's unemployment rate anytime soon, said the expert behind an economic index released today."Our view is that it is a sluggish recovery," said Edward Leamer, an economics professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and chief economist of the UCLA-Ceridian Pulse of Commerce Index.
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Cari Tuna The Wall Street Journal
04.08.2010
But sometimes, new indicators are more reliable than conventional ones, said Edward Leamer, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He swears by diesel fuel sales, for example.UCLA's Anderson School of Management recently teamed up with Ceridian Corp., a payments and payroll company, to collect data on diesel purchases by truckers nationwide. The data anticipate increases in U.S. industrial production and gross domestic product, said Mr. Leamer, director of the school's economic-forecasting group.
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Alana Semuels The Los Angeles Times
03.25.2010
The U.S. recovery will be led by exports and a revival in the national residential construction market. The forecast also includes a new feature that tracks truck drivers' purchases at rest stops to look at the volume of products being moved across the country. This feature, called the Ceridian-UCLA pulse of commerce index, shows a different perspective on the "bipolar" economy. The index jumped 2.8% in December and has remained essentially flat since then. That means the country has held o
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Camille Drummond Reuters
03.10.2010
The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index (PCI), produced by the UCLA Anderson School of Management, fell 0.7 percent last month after a 0.6 percent increase in January. The index is a new indicator that aims to gauge shifts in economic demand by tracking fuel purchases at more than 7,000 truck stops across the United States.
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Rex Nutting MarketWatch
03.10.2010
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Heavy snow slowed the movement of goods across the nation in February, according to an economic gauge released Wednesday that tracks the amount of diesel fuel purchased by trucking companies. The Ceridian-UCLA pulse of commerce index fell a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in February after a 0.6% gain in January and a 2.8% rise in December, the UCLA Anderson School of Management reported.
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Neal St. Anthony Minneapolis Star Tribune
03.09.2010
Want to know which way the economy is headed? Find out how much diesel fuel is being burned by the nation's over-the-road truckers.That's the theory behind a new economic index developed by Bloomington-based Ceridian Corp., a provider of electronic payments services, and UCLA's Anderson School of Management.
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Tom Abate San Francisco Chronicle
02.10.2010
A new index that tracks the movement of goods shipped by truck suggests that the U.S. economy is growing, but too slowly to bring about a strong labor market recovery. The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index, a measure being introduced today by UCLA Anderson economist Edward Leamer, uses credit card purchases by truckers at more than 7,000 truck stops nationwide as a proxy for the goods-producing sector of the U.S. economy.
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Rex Nutting MarketWatch
02.10.2010
A previously private economic indicator that tracks the shipment of goods by truck is hinting at slow growth in the U.S. economy, the University of California-Los Angeles Anderson School of Management reported Wednesday. The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index slowed to a 3.3% seasonally adjusted annualized growth rate in the three months ending in January from a 14.6% rate in the three months ending in December. The index was released to the public for the first time Wednesday.
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Paul Wiseman USA TODAY
02.10.2010
The latest government statistics say the economy is bounding back from a deep recession. The message from the nation's truck stops isn't so reassuring. The economy slowed in January after surging in December, according to an economic index that makes its debut Wednesday. The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce index tracks truckers as they crisscross the country, refueling their big rigs with diesel fuel.
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The Washington Post: The week ahead: Feb 8-12
02.08.2010
Ceridian is a giant company that offers corporate credit cards and other services. One of its business lines is to provide the fuel cards that large trucking firms use to allow drivers to fill up their big rigs. Ceridian has partnered with UCLA's Anderson School of Management to use data from that business to create an index of how much fuel consumption is occurring at the truck stops of America. It is, effectively, a near real-time measure of how many trucks are on the road and how far they're driving.
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Dow Jones Newswires
01.28.2010
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)-- A new data series may give a more immediate read of U.S. economic activity, especially among goods producers. More timely information would improve the accuracy of economic forecasts.
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