Japan's economic outlook "remains highly uncertain" and is likely to remain volatile, economic indicators released Friday by a U.S. business research group suggest.

The New York-based Conference Board, made up of more than 3,000 corporate and other members in 67 countries, also cautioned that Japan's economy "seems stuck at fairly low levels and continues to be unusually volatile."

The group said it based the analysis and forecast of the current state of Japan's economy on its monthly compilation of a set of leading and coincident diffusion indexes.

The group's own leading diffusion index, a barometer of future growth, slipped 0.1 percent for Japan in the six months to October, with the gauge standing at 66.7 percent for the six-month period.

The fall in the leading index follows a 1.6 percent dip in the March-September 2000 period. It also followed a 2.5 percent drop in the February-August span, the Conference Board said.

Responding to the smaller drop in the latest six-month span to October than the preceding half-year periods, the group said: "In the last three months, the leading index has recovered partially from its losses registered in early 2000.

"Whether this will become a new trend is uncertain."

The group assumed responsibility in December 1995 for computing the composite indexes in the Leading Economic Indicators from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The leading indicator for Japan rose 0.6 percent in October from September to 90.9 percent against the 1990 base of 100. Japan's coincident index, a gauge of the state of the economy, increased 0.5 percent in the six months to October, with the diffusion index coming to 66.7 percent.

The coincident index rose 0.9 percent in October from September to 104.2 percent, with the index back to its peak level reached last February.

But the group cautioned, "the coincident index has destabilized since early 2000, and its performance in the next few months is uncertain."