Chicago Fed National Activity Index Gets More Negative for August

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index came in at -0.87 in August, versus -0.12 in July. The three-month average fell to -0.47 in August, versus -0.26 in July.

We did not have expectations from Bloomberg nor from Dow Jones for this number.

The index was designed to better gauge overall economic activity and inflationary pressure, and it is a weighted average of 85 existing monthly indicators of national economic activity. Bloomberg shows that the 85 indicators are taken from four broad categories: production and income; employment, unemployment and hours; personal consumption and housing; and sales, orders and inventories.

What makes this report somewhat unique is that the regional Federal Reserve Bank indexes are local to one Fed region and this index is national in scope. Unfortunately, it is also older data compared to at least some more concurrent economic reports in the past 10 days or so.

JON C. OGG