The national activity index climbed back above the zeroline (average historical growth) to 0.07 in April which, however, follows declines of 0.37 in the prior two months. The 3-month average, therefore, remains under the zeroline for a sixth straight month at minus 0.22.

Yet April does get this index off to a good start for the second quarter, benefiting from improvement across the four major components led by production followed by employment with both personal consumption & housing as well as sales, orders, and inventories closely behind.

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.

This index is unique among regional Federal Reserve Bank indexes in that it is national in scope. Investors are eager to have insight into economic growth and inflation. This index combines 85 diverse and already released indicators from four broad categories -- production and income; employment, unemployment, and hours; personal consumption and housing; and sales, orders, and inventories -- into an overall index to measure economic performance. The index provides another measure with which investors can measure overall growth.