Is the string of weak US economic data surprises a sign of history repeating?

The US index is historically bad

The economic surprise index from Citi measures how economic data has performed relative to expectations. It's a great way to see which countries are outperforming.

The top of the list features a handful of commodity exporters and the suddenly-solid Eurozone. At the bottom, it's Switzerland, the UK and US. What stands out is how far behind the US is lagging. The numbers underscore what a wretched run of data the US has been on.

After that, it's all a matter of perspective. Maybe it's an aberration or maybe economists have it dead wrong. Either way, it has major implications for the US dollar.

If you're a dollar bull, here is a chart that's comforting.

The pattern this year is very similar to 2011 when the index fell off a cliff in the first half of the year and then recovered by year end. In that time, the Dollar Index climbed 8%.