The Federal Reserve operates with a sizable balance sheet that includes a large number of distinct assets and liabilities. The Federal Reserve's balance sheet contains a great deal of information about the scale and scope of its operations. For decades, market participants have closely studied the evolution of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet to understand more clearly important details concerning the implementation of monetary policy. Over recent years, the development and implementation of a number of new lending facilities to address the financial crisis have both increased complexity of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and has led to increased public interest in it.

Each week, the Federal Reserve publishes its balance sheet, typically on Thursday afternoon around 4:30 p.m. The balance sheet is included in the Federal Reserve's H.4.1 statistical release, "Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions and Condition Statement of Federal Reserve...

This webinar is an opportunity for potential lenders in the Main Street Lending Program to learn more details about the infrastructure and operations of the Main Street Lending Program. The program is designed to support small and medium-sized U.S. businesses during this period of financial strain by giving these businesses access to additional credit. The program is intended to help companies that were in sound financial condition prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic maintain operations and payroll until conditions normalize. Small and medium-sized businesses are integral to the U.S. economy and create jobs for a large share of the U.S. workforce.

Interested participants are encouraged to review the program term sheets, frequently asked questions, and listen to the recording of the Ask the Fed session on May 5 that provided an overview of the Main Street Lending Program.

To allow as many financial institutions to participate as...

The Chicago Fed’s Detroit Economic Activity Index (DEAI) was –1.98 in March 2020. For the entire first quarter of 2020, the DEAI value was +0.07.1 The DEAI’s value in March reflects the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the city’s economic activity. While Detroit’s population makes up just 6.7% of Michigan’s total population, Detroit accounts for 19.2% of all confirmed Covid-19 cases ... Read More

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The Detroit Economic Activity Index measures growth in economic activity for the city of Detroit. The index is constructed using a mixed-frequency dynamic factor model of 24 Detroit-specific data series capturing income, employment, residential and commercial real estate activity, electric customer counts, tax revenues, and port activity. It is calibrated so that Detroit’s historical growth trend (average) equals zero, meaning that an index value greater than zero implies the city’s economic activity is growing faster than trend and, conversely, a value less than zero implies its activity is growing slower than trend. The index is then measured in standard deviation units from trend growth. The DEAI is released at 10 a.m. ET on scheduled days, on a quarterly basis, toward the beginning of March, June, September, and December.

This drop-in session is an opportunity for potential borrowers in the Main Street Lending Program to ask questions about the program to senior officials from the Federal Reserve. The Main Street Lending Program supports small and medium-sized U.S. businesses and their employees during this period of financial strain by giving these businesses access to additional credit. The program is intended to help companies that were in sound financial condition prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic maintain operations and payroll until conditions normalize. Small and medium-sized businesses are integral to the U.S. economy and create jobs for a large share of the U.S. workforce.

To allow as many potential borrowers to participate as possible, we ask each business to register no more than two representatives for the live session. A recording of the session will be available shortly after the call. We strongly encourage participants to use the webinar...

The Chicago Fed’s National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI) provides a comprehensive weekly update on U.S. financial conditions in money markets, debt and equity markets and the traditional and “shadow” banking systems. Because U.S. economic and financial conditions tend to be highly correlated, we also present an alternative index, the adjusted NFCI (ANFCI). This index isolates a component of financial conditions uncorrelated with economic conditions to provide an update on financial conditions relative to current economic conditions.

The NFCI and ANFCI are updated on a weekly basis at 8:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, and cover the time period through the previous Friday. When a federal holiday falls on a Wednesday or earlier in the week, the NFCI and ANFCI will be updated on Thursday.

The Brave-Butters-Kelley Indexes (BBKI) are a research project of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The BBK Coincident and Leading Indexes and Monthly GDP Growth for the U.S. are constructed from a collapsed dynamic factor analysis of a panel of 500 monthly measures of real economic activity and quarterly real GDP growth. Monthly updates to the BBKI are released at 8:30 a.m. ET on scheduled days.

*For the June 2, 2020, release, we further updated data definitions in order to take full advantage of the advance releases for inventories and international trade data. Even with these changes, we still observed only 428 of 500 monthly data series for April 2020. Given the very large changes in many economic indicators in March and April 2020, we decided not to fully reestimate the model's parameters until nearly all of the data series were available for April. Instead, we reestimated the model parameters using data through March 2020 (498 of 500 indicators were...

The Brave-Butters-Kelley Indexes (BBKI) for the U.S. are constructed from a collapsed dynamic factor analysis of a panel of 500 monthly measures of real economic activity and quarterly real gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Monthly updates to the BBKI are released at 8:30 a.m. ET on scheduled days.

Agricultural credit conditions in the Kansas City Fed’s Tenth District deteriorated at a slightly faster pace at the onset of developments related to COVID-19. The survey for the first quarter of 2020, distributed in mid-March, indicated a larger decline in farm income and loan repayment rates than in recent quarters. Looking ahead, bankers indicated their expectations were much more pessimistic. Beyond the survey period, further disruptions at meatpacking and food processing facilities and a substantial slowdown in ethanol production put heavy downward pressure on cattle and corn prices. Through early May, cash prices for both since January had declined more than 20 percent, adding pressure to already stressed farm finances in the seven states of the District.

This webinar is an opportunity for potential borrowers in the Main Street Lending Program to learn more about the program and ask questions to senior officials from the Federal Reserve. The Main Street Lending Program supports small and medium-sized U.S. businesses and their employees during this period of financial strain by giving these businesses access to additional credit. The program is intended to help companies that were in sound financial condition prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic maintain operations and payroll until conditions normalize. Small and medium-sized businesses are integral to the U.S. economy and create jobs for a large share of the U.S. workforce.

To allow as many potential borrowers to participate as possible, we ask each business to register no more than two representatives for the live session. A recording of the session will be available shortly after the call. We strongly encourage participants to use the...

The Midwest Economy Index (MEI) is a monthly index designed to measure growth in nonfarm business activity in the Seventh Federal Reserve District. It serves as a regional counterpart to the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI). The MEI is released at 8:30 a.m. ET on scheduled days, normally toward the end of each calendar month.

This webinar is an opportunity for potential borrowers in the Main Street Lending Program to learn more about the program and ask questions to senior officials from the Federal Reserve. The Main Street Lending Program supports small and medium-sized U.S. businesses and their employees during this period of financial strain by giving these businesses access to additional credit. The program is intended to help companies that were in sound financial condition prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic maintain operations and payroll until conditions normalize. Small and medium-sized businesses are integral to the U.S. economy and create jobs for a large share of the U.S. workforce.

To allow as many potential borrowers to participate as possible, we ask each business to register no more than two representatives for the live session. A recording of the session will be available shortly after the call. We strongly encourage participants to use the...

Notes: This chart shows the average annual change in farmland values in the Seventh District, using data from the Chicago Fed's Land Values and Credit Conditions Survey. Farmland values account for a significant part of farm sector asset values and equity. As such, the movement in farmland values is an important indicator of agriculture's economic health. Farmland values have an impact on the owner's ability to borrow and on the quality of a bank's loan portfolio because they affect the borrower's financial position as well as the bank's collateral. Farmland values rose rapidly in the 1970s, partly on account of high inflation, and then crashed in the 1980s. Many farmers experienced financial difficulties at that time because both income and farmland values dropped.

Source: Chicago Fed staff calculations based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Land Values and Credit Conditions Survey.

Central banks around the globe are commonly charged with the responsibility of producing timely predictions of the current state of the economy in the course of conducting monetary policy. This task is often difficult given the substantial publication lags in comprehensive measures of economic activity, such as U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP). Accordingly, a large literature has developed methods that utilize the broad set of available high-frequency (typically monthly) economic indicators to track changes in economic activity in real time. In this article, we employ recent advances in this literature to produce a new “big data” index of U.S. economic activity that can be used to track U.S. business and inflation cycles in real time and estimate monthly real GDP growth.

Our work in this area is an extension of the nearly 20-year tradition established by the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI). The CFNAI is a monthly measure of growth in U.S. economic...

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago tentatively plans to hold a conference on Midwest agriculture and shifting consumer preferences on December 1, 2020. Additional information about the event will become available on this page.