New York – Following two months of strong gains, the Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator slipped almost a half of a point as political unrest in the U.S. and abroad set back the recovery. The ESI dropped from 46.9 in January to 46.5 in February.

"The ESI continued to tread water in February, broadly maintaining levels of the previous two months. This suggests that although the recovery is embedded, it is still muted," said Dow Jones Newswires "Money Talks" columnist Alen Mattich. "There has been some erosion of sentiment during the past week as a result of the jump in oil prices triggered by the upheavals in North Africa."

The ESI is determined by in-depth analysis of national news coverage across 15 daily newspapers.

As the price of crude oil passed $100 a barrel for the first time in two years, concerns about the impact on consumers and businesses began to sink the ESI. Other news that aided in the ESI's decline was grassroots reporting covering budget cuts and criticizing spending by local governments in Chicago, New York and Michigan.

Upbeat news around corporate earnings which kept the stock market climbing through most of February mitigated negative coverage and the ESI's fall. Many retailers, including Target, Kohl's and Sears Holdings, had positive fourth-quarter results for shareholders. Reports of higher retail sales in January also added to the ESI's strength.

The Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator aims to predict the health of the U.S. economy by analyzing the coverage of 15 major daily newspapers in the U.S. Using a proprietary algorithm and derived data technology, the ESI examines every article in each of the newspapers for positive and negative sentiment about the economy. The indicator is calculated through Dow Jones Insight, a media tracking and analysis tool. The technology used for the ESI also powers Dow Jones Lexicon, a proprietary dictionary that allows traders and analysts to determine sentiment, frequency and other relevant complex patterns within news to develop predictive trading strategies.