Chicago Fed National Activity Index, three-month average (CFNAI-MA3)

The official definition

Near zone, the site’s own rule: -0.70 to -0.40. No publisher defines a “near” zone. The site uses a fixed distance from the publisher’s line so a reader can check it; it is not a forecast. Past readings in it often came to nothing. Site’s count: 18 near-zone runs since 1967: 10 during recessions, 3 before a recession, 5 with no recession within 18 months.

Past runs below -0.70

Site’s count: fell below -0.70 during each of the 8 recessions since 1967 (12 separate runs). No run without a recession during it or within 18 months of its start.

The Chicago Fed: “The thresholds have been identified with the benefit of hindsight and the CFNAI constructed using a full sample of revised data.” It adds that “a total of eight recessions is a small number of events.”

Each row is a run of consecutive months past the publisher’s line, from the site’s back-test of the data as of August 2026. Outcomes use an 18-month window, measured from the first month of each run: no publisher states a window; this is the site’s choice. So a run longer than the window can end shortly before a recession and still count as “no recession followed”; the table says when that happened. “Too recent to judge” means the window closes less than 21 months before the latest month of NBER’s record (Sept. 2026), NBER’s longest announcement lag so far, so a recession could still be dated inside it. The scoring is mechanical: it does not judge whether a signal caused or forecast anything.

Back-test snapshot as of August 2026, retrieved Sept. 26, 2026, computed from CFNAIMA3, USREC; rerun by hand after a data refresh. Episodes CSV: Chicago Fed activity index (CFNAI-MA3) (every run, including the near-zone runs).

Episode notes

What official sources say about each episode, in their words. The site does not state causes in its own voice; where sources differ, each is shown.

1. Jan. 1970; Oct. 1970 to Nov. 1970 (NBER peak Dec. 1969, trough Nov. 1970)

   Mandelman and Meyer, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (authors’ views), Lessons from the Past: Can the 1970s Help Inform the Future Path of Monetary Policy? (August 31, 2022): The recession “followed a period of fiscal tightening to make up for large government outlays for the Vietnam War and a sizeable slowing in money growth as the Fed attempted to quell rising inflation.”

2. Oct. 1974 to May 1975 (NBER peak Nov. 1973, trough March 1975)

   Corbett, Federal Reserve History, Oil Shock of 1973-74: The 1973 embargo’s cuts “nearly quadrupled the price of oil from $2.90 a barrel before the embargo to $11.65 a barrel in January 1974.”

   Bryan, Federal Reserve History, The Great Inflation: Places the origin of the decade’s inflation in “policies that allowed for an excessive growth in the supply of money,” while acknowledging that “the inflation being caused by the rising price of oil was largely beyond the control of monetary policy.”

3. April 1980 to July 1980 (NBER peak Jan. 1980, trough July 1980)

   Sablik, Federal Reserve History, Recession of 1981-82: “The credit-control program initiated in March 1980 by the Carter administration precipitated a sharp recession (Schreft 1990).”

   Bryan, Federal Reserve History, The Great Inflation: “Lending activity fell, unemployment rose, and the economy entered a brief recession between January and July.”

4. Oct. 1981 to Feb. 1982; May 1982 to Dec. 1982 (NBER peak July 1981, trough Nov. 1982)

   Sablik, Federal Reserve History, Recession of 1981-82: The downturn “was triggered by tight monetary policy in an effort to fight mounting inflation.”

   Bryan, Federal Reserve History, The Great Inflation: “The economy entered recession again in July 1981, and this proved to be more severe and protracted, lasting until November 1982.”

5. Nov. 1990 to March 1991 (NBER peak July 1990, trough March 1991)

   Walsh, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, What Caused the 1990-1991 Recession? (Economic Review 1993, No. 2): “Pessimistic consumers, the debt accumulations of the 1980s, the jump in oil prices after Iraq invaded Kuwait, a credit crunch induced by overzealous banking regulators, and attempts by the Federal Reserve to lower the rate of inflation all have been cited as causes of the recession.”

6. April 2001; June 2001; Nov. 2001 (NBER peak March 2001, trough Nov. 2001)

   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, U.S. labor market in 2001: economy enters a recession (February 2002): “Manufacturing’s downturn started in late summer of 2000 and deepened in 2001, as businesses sharply reduced spending on machinery, computers, and other capital goods.”

   Kliesen, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, The 2001 Recession: How Was It Different and What Developments May Have Caused It? (2003, abstract): “the peak-to-trough decline in real gross domestic product was one of the smallest on record.”

7. April 2008 to June 2009 (NBER peak Dec. 2007, trough June 2009)

   Rich, Federal Reserve History, The Great Recession: Calls the housing market “the epicenter of the crisis and recession.”

   Weinberg, Federal Reserve History, The Great Recession and Its Aftermath: A fall in home prices of “over a fifth on average across the nation” from early 2007 to 2011 “helped to spark the financial crisis of 2007-08.”

8. March 2020 to June 2020 (NBER peak Feb. 2020, trough April 2020)

   NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, Determination of the February 2020 Peak (June 8, 2020): “the pandemic and the public health response have resulted in a downturn with different characteristics and dynamics than prior recessions.”

   NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, Determination of the April 2020 Trough (July 19, 2021): “The recession lasted two months, which makes it the shortest US recession on record.”

   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Unemployment rises in 2020, as the country battles the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2021): “the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it led businesses to suspend operations or close, resulting in a record number of temporary layoffs.”

Caveats

• The Chicago Fed: “The thresholds have been identified with the benefit of hindsight and the CFNAI constructed using a full sample of revised data. Until more research has been conducted on the usefulness of these thresholds in real-time assessments, caution should be exercised in using them as real-time guides.” (Background on the CFNAI, March 12, 2026, p. 4)
• The Chicago Fed: “The CFNAI is revised with each monthly release.” This chart and the record below use today’s revised history, not what readers saw at the time.
• The Chicago Fed: “a total of eight recessions is a small number of events.”
• The near zone’s -0.40 edge is the Berge and Jordà value the Chicago Fed’s Background cites as of July 2021; using it as a near zone is the site’s choice.