TRADE

Conference Board to Publish Economic Indicators: The government is turning the job of compiling its chief economic forecasting gauge over to a private business group. The Commerce Department, concluding a competition among six bidders, said that allowing the Conference Board, a New York-based research group, to publish the index of leading economic indicators will save the government about $450,000 a year. The index, often maligned by private economists for its failure to predict recessions accurately, nonetheless has considerable clout on Wall Street and has been known to cause big swings in financial markets. The federal agency said no one will be out of a job as a result of the privatization.