On the program today, what's going on with housing, a new way students are learning personal finance,

and how one small business dealt with a fire, and now tariffs.

From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Portland, Oregon, I'm Rima Jaze in for Kai Rizdal.

It is Thursday, 19th of June.

Good to have you with us on this Juneteenth.

It's been a busy week for economic tea leaves.

Retail sales, housing starts, the usual clues,

and tomorrow we'll round things off with the conference board's leading economic index. That is a

monthly report that takes into account 10 different economic measurements and then spits out a number

that helps us understand where this economy might be headed. Marketplace's

Elizabeth Troval takes a look at what makes those indicators actually leading. A parent wouldn't

pick their favorite child, and the conference boards, Eustina Javinska, LaMonica, isn't about to name a preferred

measurement in the leading economic index.

They're all extremely important.

The indices cover financial conditions, employment, and production, like average hours worked in

manufacturing in a week.

Let's say producer, manufacturer, has a little bit lower orders coming in.

They usually tend first to just cut hours.

That could signal weakness in manufacturing before it shows up in unemployment.

Another part of the leading index is home building permit, says Rice University's John Diamond.

When you get that initial permit, that pretty much starts a year of economic activity.

You've got lumber to buy, roofs to raise, the supplies, the suppliers, the workers.

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