NEW YORK — Evidence is accumulating that the nation's economic recovery is gaining momentum.
On Thursday, the Conference Board reported that its closely watched Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose 0.4 percent in October, suggesting stronger economic activity in the coming year.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said that fewer U.S. workers filed new applications for unemployment benefits last week.
The department said that for the week ending Nov. 15, new claims for jobless benefits declined by a seasonally adjusted 15,000 to 355,000. For seven straight weeks claims have been below the 400,000 mark, suggesting that the job market is turning a corner.
"There's been a steady stream — rather than a trickle — of good news," said Tim O'Neill, chief economist for the Bank of Montreal and Harris Bank in Chicago. "We're probably headed toward a torrent over the next few months."
O'Neill noted that after the recession ended in November 2001, the economy stutter-stepped between strength one quarter and weakness the next through 2002.
"What the leading indicators are pointing toward is that this is an economy on a much more solid roll than last year," O'Neill said.
The positive reports helped limit the market's losses after terrorist attacks in Turkey. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 71.04 at 9,619.42. The Nasdaq composite index fell 17.73 to 1,881.92, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index declined 8.79 to 1,033.65.
The Conference Board said its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased to 113.6 last month after showing no change in September and a 0.4 percent rise in August. September's figure was revised upward from an initially reported 0.2 percent dip.
The October rise was greater than the 0.2 percent increase most analysts had been forecasting.
Anthony Chan, chief economist at Banc One Investment Advisors in Columbus, Ohio, said the October reading came in stronger than expected because housing construction was showing continued growth.
"The real story, I think, is the upward revision in the prior month," Chan said. "That along with the October numbers confirm that things are cooking."
The U.S. economy grew at a sizzling 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter of this year, and most economists believe growth will be a respec-
table 4 percent in the October-December period.
"Next year," Chan said, "consumers are going to be wallowing in tax refunds — and that can only help growth."
The Conference Board's economist, Ken Goldstein, said in a statement accompanying the report that the data "point to continued economic growth in the next year." The Conference Board is a business research group based in New York.
The group said that six of the 10 components of the Leading Indicators contributed to October's increase — a drop in initial claims for unemployment as well as gains in building permits, vendor performance, stock prices, consumer expectations and the spread in interest rates. The decliners were the money supply, new orders for capital goods, and new orders for consumer goods and materials. Average weekly manufacturing hours held steady.
The Index of Coincident Indicators, which gauges current economic activity, increased 0.2 percent in October to 116.0 after rising the same amount in September to 115.8.
The Index of Lagging Indicators increased 0.2 percent to 97.5 in October after dropping 0.6 percent to 97.3 in September.