US leading indicators slip in May, triggering recession signal, Conference Board says

(Reuters) -A measure of future U.S. economic activity fell in May for the sixth straight month and triggered a recession signal, held down by consumer pessimism, weak new orders for manufactured goods, an uptick in jobless benefits claims and a drop in building permit applications.

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index fell by 0.1% to 99.0 last month after a downwardly revised 1.4% drop in April, which was the largest decline in the index since the spring of 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline matched the consensus expectation among economists polled by Reuters.

A rebound in stock prices in May following a series of temporary roll backs in President Donald Trump's wave of tariffs was the main positive contributor to the index, the Conference Board's senior manager for business cycle indicators, Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, said in a statement. But that was slightly outweighed by those other factors.

"With the substantial negatively revised drop in April and the further downtick in May, the six-month growth rate of the Index has become more negative, triggering the recession signal," she said.

"The Conference Board does not anticipate recession, but we do expect a significant slowdown in economic growth in 2025 compared to 2024, with real GDP growing at 1.6% this year and persistent tariff effects potentially leading to further deceleration in 2026."

The Leading Index had signaled a recession a few years ago during the peak of the inflation wave that followed the pandemic, but the economy never slid into contraction.

(Reporting By Dan Burns, Editing by Nick Zieminski)