In a world full of indices for anything you can think of some things are likely to map the economy well at any point in time, until they don't. Perhaps I don't have enough of a formal economics/finance education, but looking at the current BDI graph and comparing it with the other economic indicators I didn't see that much consensus.
http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index....
In a world full of indices for anything you can think of some things are likely to map the economy well at any point in time, until they don't. Perhaps I don't have enough of a formal economics/finance education, but looking at the current BDI graph and comparing it with the other economic indicators I didn't see that much consensus.