The numbers: The Chicago Fed’s national activity index, which is designed to gauge overall U.S. economic activity, declined to 0.27 in November from a revised 1.01 in the prior month. It is the smallest gain after the sharp decline in May.
The index’s three-month moving average, which tries to smooth out volatility, fell to 0.56 from 0.85 in October.
A zero value of the index indicates the national economy is expanding at its historic trend rate of growth.
The October reading was revised from an initial estimate of 0.83.
What happened: The Chicago Fed index is a weighted average of 85 economic indicators. Forty-nine of the individual indicators made positive contributions to the index in November.
Production-related indicators added 0.14 to the index in November, down from 0.36 in the prior month. The contribution of sales, orders and inventories decreased to 0.07 in November from 0.17 in the prior month.
Employment-related indicators contributed 0.15 to the index, down from 0.45 in the prior month.
The contribution of the personal consumption and housing category fell 0.9 in November after a slight 0.02 gain in October.
Big picture: The index points to slower, but still slightly above-average growth in November. Economists are concerned that the downward trend will only gather steam over the winter months ahead as the coronavirus continues to spread across the country.
Market reaction: U.S. stock-index futures pointed to a lower opening on Monday as concern about a new strain of coronavirus discovered in the UK overshadowed optimism from news of a pandemic-relief bill. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
