Economic Collapse

[basserdan]

8:30a Chicago Fed National Activity Index
Level -0.45 actual vs 0.05 (revised) prior
3 Month Moving Average -0.22 vs -0.16 prior

Consensus Outlook
The national activity index is expected to improve only slightly in April to minus 0.10 vs minus 0.15 in March. This index showed broad weakness through the first quarter to indicate subpar historical growth.

Definition
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) is a monthly index that tracks overall economic activity and inflationary pressures. The CFNAI is a weighted average of 85 existing monthly indicators of national economic activity. It is constructed to have an average value of zero and a standard deviation of one. Since economic activity tends toward trend growth over time, a positive index reading corresponds to growth above trend and a negative index reading corresponds to growth below trend.