A widely followed gauge of future economic activity fell for the second straight month during August as consumer confidence sagged even before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

Stan Caston, a former bartender at the Louisiana Superdome and Hurricane Katrina evacuee, interviews for a job Thursday at the West Virginia National Guard training center near Kingwood, W.Va.

The Conference Board said Thursday its Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell 0.2 percent last month to 137.6. July’s slight increase was revised to a small decrease and there were downward revisions to previous months.

The private research group said consumer expectations, one of the components of the index, fell during August. The data for the index, collected before Katrina’s devastation, is consistent with the economy continuing to expand more moderately in the near term, the Conference Board said.

But Katrina was likely to send future LEI readings lower.

“Even before Katrina we saw a big runup in energy prices. September is going to be very weak. It is going to show the impact of Katrina,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets.

In a separate economic report Thursday, the Labor Department said the number of Americans thrown out of work by Katrina and seeking jobless benefits now totals 214,000. Overall jobless claims rose to 432,000 last week, the highest level for total jobless claims since July 5, 2003.

The research group’s coincident index, a measure of current economic activity, increased in August. This index has been increasing at a 2.5 percent annual rate since April 2003, but its growth rate has moderated in recent months.