Christmas week brings a lull in the data-gusher which I try to understand and control each week.  So this week I look at what I think have been the characteristics of 2019.  Without wanting to embrace Scrooge-like gloom, I have to say that 2019 was marked by Funk,  Lies and Displacement Activity.   Let's at least grasp that and hope that 2020 will bring something a little better, a little more honest, and a little more imaginative from policymakers. 

Each month I look at approximately 500 different datapoints from the world's leading economies, and identify those which land a standard deviation above or below where they 'should' have been, according to consensus or trend.  This allows me to track the health of the world economy in near-real time, as well as identifying those directions which might be telling us something about the longer-term picture. 

This podcast summarises the results from the previous week.