The first sentence of the February 2017 SMP Overview read: 5 / 10  BIS central bankers' speeches  ‘The global economy entered 2017 with more momentum than earlier expected.’ The facts had changed, and we had changed our minds. The nature and pattern of the pick-up in the data convinced us.
The first aspect of the shift that helped convince us was the broadening of the pick-up from sentiment indicators (including financial market pricing) to measures of physical activity. Growth in global trade was the first place this became apparent. Industrial production data in a range of countries followed soon afterwards. The second aspect was the broad-based spread of the pickup across countries and regions.