The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) is a put together by a regional Federal Reserve branch, but the focus is on the national trends as a whole. While it looks backward for a month, September in this case, the index focuses on a weighted average of 85 different economic indicators of national economic activity. These are made up of four components and themes: production and income; employment data; personal consumption and housing; and sales, orders and inventories.
The CFNAI was shown to have ticked to -0.37 in September from -0.39 in August. Two of the four broad categories of indicators decreased from August, but the Fed report suggested that all four broad categories made “nonpositive contributions to the index” in September.
The index’s three-month moving average fell to -0.09 in September from +0.01 in August. This suggests that broader growth in national economic activity was slightly below its historical trend.
Another measurement is the CFNAI Diffusion Index, which is also a three-month moving average. This component fell to -0.17 in September from -0.04 in August. That Diffusion Index showed that 26 of the 85 individual indicators made positive contributions to the CFNAI in September. Some 59 of those individual components made negative contributions. Still, 42 indicators improved from August to September and 42 indicators deteriorated (one was unchanged). Of the indicators that improved, 25 made negative contributions.
September’s CFNAI report concluded:
The CFNAI was constructed using data available as of October 20, 2015. At that time, September data for 49 of the 85 indicators had been published. For all missing data, estimates were used in constructing the index. The August monthly index was revised to –0.39 from an initial estimate of –0.41. Revisions to the monthly index can be attributed to two main factors: revisions in previously published data and differences between the estimates of previously unavailable data and subsequently published data. The revision to the August monthly index was due primarily to the former.
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