Chicago Fed National Activity Index - CFNAI

The CFNAI or the Chicago Fed National Activity Index is a monthly index released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It is a weighted average of several economic indicators that belong to four main categories: Production and income, employment, unemployment and hours, personal consumption and housing and finally sales, orders and inventories. The CFNAI is a measure of the economic activity, it tracks periods of economic expansion and contraction and periods of increasing and decreasing inflationary pressure.

This item downloads two versions of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index. The first one, whose symbol name is "^CFNAI", contains historical data of the CFNAI values that were made available at the time of the release. The second time series, whose symbol name is "^CFNAI_Current", contains historical data of the current revision of the CFNAI Index. This means that the historical values of the "CFNAI_Current" changes on each release.

Interpretation:
The likelihood that a recession begins increases if the 3-month moving average of the CFNAI moves below -0.7 following a period of economic expansion.
The likelihood that a recession ends increases if the 3-month moving average of the CFNAI moves above -0.7 following a period of economic contraction.
The likelihood that a period of sustained increasing inflation begins increases if the 3-month moving average of the CFNAI stays above +0.7 for more than two years during an economic expansion.

The CFNAI uses 85 monthly economic indicators, these indicators include:
Industrial Production: Manufacturing
Industrial Production: Materials
ISM Manufacturing PMI Composite Index (ISM Manufacturing PMI Index)
National Association of Purchasing Managers: Employment Index
Weekly Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance (Initial Jobless Claims - Historical data)
Housing Starts SAAR
Inventory / Sales Ratio (Inventory to Sales Ratio - I/S Ratio)
...

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