A 787 Dreamliner being built for Air India is pictured at South Carolina Boeing final assembly building in North Charleston, South Carolina. (Photo: Reuters)
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) came in at 0.49, easily beating the median forecast by nearly five times the expected +0.10. Forecasters saw the index coming in only marginally better than March’s disappointing +0.08.
The index’s three-month moving average, CFNAI-MA3, surged to +0.23 in April from a neutral reading in March. The CFNAI Diffusion Index, which is also a three-month moving average, shot up to +0.16 in April from +0.06 in March.
Employment boosted what has been a weak national activity index held back by a struggling post-recession manufacturing sector and historically weak consumer spending. The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) is a monthly index that tracks overall economic activity and inflationary pressures. It is a weighted average of 85 existing monthly indicators of national economic activity.
The CFNAI was constructed using data available as of May 18, 2017 and has an average value of zero and a standard deviation of one.
