Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI)

The official definition

The Chicago Fed sets no trigger. Zero is the average; the site shows readings above it as tighter than average, which is how the publisher describes them.

Near zone, the site’s own rule: -0.25 to +0.25 (“near average”). 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. It describes where a reading sits, on either side of the line; the site does not score it against recessions. Site’s count: 30 near-zone runs since 1971, shown as context only; the site does not score them against recessions.

Past runs above 0

Site’s count: rose above 0 before or during each of the 7 recessions since 1971 (before 5, during 2; 7 separate runs). 7 runs with no recession within 18 months of their start (the site’s window): Jan. 1971 to Sept. 1972 (a recession began 15 months after it ended); Sept. to Dec. 1975; Oct. 1983 to Jan. 1984; April to Nov. 1984; April to Aug. 1987; Aug. 1987 to May 1990 (a recession began 3 months after it ended); Oct. 1998.

The Chicago Fed sets no trigger: zero is the average, and scoring runs above it against recessions is the site’s own count, not a publisher’s test.

Each row is a run of consecutive weeks 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 NFCI, USREC; rerun by hand after a data refresh. Episodes CSV: Financial conditions (NFCI) (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. 8, 1971 to Sept. 8, 1972 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

   No official account of a cause has been found.

2. Jan. 19, 1973 to May 16, 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. Sept. 19, 1975 to Dec. 5, 1975 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

   No official account of a cause has been found.

4. March 31, 1978 to April 1, 1983 (NBER peak Jan. 1980, trough July 1980; NBER peak July 1981, trough Nov. 1982)

   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).”

   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: “Lending activity fell, unemployment rose, and the economy entered a brief recession between January and July.”

   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. Oct. 28, 1983 to Jan. 6, 1984 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

   No official account of a cause has been found.

6. April 6, 1984 to Nov. 9, 1984 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

   No official account of a cause has been found.

7. April 10, 1987 to Aug. 7, 1987 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

   No official account of a cause has been found.

8. Aug. 28, 1987 to May 18, 1990 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

   No official account of a cause has been found.

9. Aug. 10, 1990 to March 1, 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.”

10. Oct. 9, 1998 to Oct. 23, 1998 (no recession followed within 18 months (the site’s window))

    No official account of a cause has been found.

11. May 19, 2000 to June 23, 2000 (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.”

12. Aug. 17, 2007 to Oct. 5, 2007; Oct. 26, 2007 to Nov. 13, 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.”

13. March 13, 2020 to May 1, 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 history of the indexes can change from week to week depending on incoming data and data revisions.” Every refresh can change past values, so the chart and the record below are the history as of our retrieval date, not what readers saw at the time.
• The Chicago Fed: “It is not until 1987 that more than a half of the indicators are available.”
• Zero is an average, not a warning line. The near zone is labeled “near average,” not “near stress.”
• The adjusted index (ANFCI), in the CSV, removes the part of conditions explained by economic activity and inflation; the Chicago Fed says it “will tend to show larger revisions.”