The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reported that its National Activity index increased to 0.24 during October from 0.14 in September. The three-month moving average was fairly steady at 0.31. During the last ten years, there has been a 64% correlation between the Chicago Fed Index and the q/q change in real GDP.

Improvement in the October index was led by the Employment, Unemployment & Hours series to 0.19, its highest level since February. The Production & Income reading eased to 0.06 and has been trending lower since the Spring. The Sales, Orders & Inventories figure held steady at 0.04 and remained down following an August jump. The Personal Consumption & Housing indicator eased to -0.05 and has been down since an upward spike in March.

The CFNAI is a weighted average of 85 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 rate over time, a positive index reading corresponds to growth above trend and a negative index reading corresponds to growth below trend.

The Chicago Federal Reserve figures are available in Haver's SURVEYS database.