Chicago Fed National Activity Feels Like Recession

The Chicago Federal Reserve has released its National Activity Index for the month of April. Unfortunately, the move was in the wrong direction. April saw the drop down to -0.53 from an already negative report of -0.23 from March. Today's report sounds like yet another negative economic one, but the good news for the market is that investors tend to overlook this one report compared to other national and super-regional reports.

The three-month moving average was also negative at -0.04 in April, but this is actually less bad than the -0.05 average reported back in March.

Today's data is a weighted average of 85 different economic indicators. The design is to indicate that a reading above zero is positive and resembling growth. A negative reading represents economic contraction.

Over the weekend came news that Ben Bernanke was calling for more innovation to rescue the economy.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Economy