leading indicator

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An phenomenon that generally occurs in advance of an important phenomenon, aiding in its prediction.
• noun economics A phenomenon that is predictive of the overall level of economic activity, especially one for which reliable statistics are available; a leading economic indicator.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun one of 11 indicators for different sections of the economy; used by the Department of Commerce to predict economic trends in the near future