Once every four to six weeks he heads to a shopping mall to check how busy it is and how high-end retailers such as Apple or women's clothing chain Madewell are doing and notes that the traffic clearly picked up last month.
Tracking dog shows sounds more fun than poring over non-farm payroll data, but does it work?
Tim Duy, economics professor at the University of Oregon, says offbeat indicators can help investors crystallize their views, but they need to be careful with their interpretation.
"The challenge of these indicators is to separate out the movements attributable to non-economic factors," says Duy. For example, firearm sales could rise in anticipation of tougher gun laws, he says.
Analysts and investors say that while it is not a precise science, going off the beaten track is well worth the effort.
Colas, for example, says food stamp use has been a reliable proxy of the U.S. economy's strength and has helped form his view that the Fed would be patient about raising interest rates.
Kenny says his trips to the malls chimed with the first quarter gross domestic product data that showed a slow economic recovery and now expects new data to confirm the pick up he has seen over the past few weeks.
And Duy himself, who collects monthly landfill data for Oregon because he believes the economy produces more waste when it is growing, says over the years the figures have consistently squared with the findings of the more traditional indicators.