OECD Leading Indicators API
Which economies are heading into expansion, slowdown, downturn or recovery — the OECD Composite Leading Indicators (CLI) as an API, live from the OECD's official statistics, no key. The CLI is designed to flag turning points in the business cycle six to nine months ahead: it leads GDP, it does not follow it. It is built to oscillate around 100 — above 100 means activity is above its long-term trend, below 100 means below trend, and the direction (rising or falling) gives the momentum. Combining level and direction gives the classic four-phase business-cycle clock macro traders position around: above 100 and rising is Expansion, above 100 and falling is Downturn, below 100 and falling is Slowdown, below 100 and rising is Recovery. The board endpoint returns every economy the OECD tracks (and the aggregates — G7, G20, OECD, NAFTA, the major European and Asian groups) with its current amplitude-adjusted CLI, the month-on-month change and its business-cycle phase, ranked. The country endpoint returns one economy's CLI — its latest reading, the month-on-month change and its phase. The phase endpoint groups every economy into the four phases of the cycle clock, so you can see at a glance who is accelerating and who is rolling over. The leading-indicator / business-cycle cut — distinct from the generic multi-provider data aggregator (which fetches any raw series but is not a curated, interpreted CLI board), from the government-bond-yield board, and from inflation and central-bank-rate APIs. Figures are monthly; this is the forward-looking macro lens.
api.oanor.com/leadingindicators-api
