NPR.

This is the Indicator from Plata Money, I'm Darien Woods.

I'm Whalen Wong.

And I'm Adrian Ma, and it is time for Indicators of the Week!

Some people say, thank God it's Friday, I say thank God it's the Indicators of the Week.

They will say, we've been getting a lot of confusing signals from the economy lately.

Today the S&P 500 stock market index hit a 20% decline from its all-time peak at the start

of the year.

It didn't last long, but it does mean that for a little while at least we officially went

into what's known as a bear market.

Yet job numbers are pretty good at the moment and spending levels are high, so there are actually

these bright signs in the economy too.

So today on the show we're going to zoom in on three Indicators, have them do with manufacturing,

consumer credit, and the housing market.

And we're going to try to see if we can illuminate where we are going in this economy.

Okay Darien, do you want to kick us off?

My Indicator of the Week is 15 years.

Factories in the US are at a 15 year high in terms of how busy they are.

New numbers out this week showed that the last time America's factories were making

stuff this fast was in 2007.

2007 is a lot of flip-flowing in 2007.

Yeah, this is the pre-smart phone era.

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