CK Intelligence
CK Momentum Index
-0.04
Sep 2026
- Change on previous
- −0.09 from Aug 2026
- Change on a year earlier
- −0.17
Standard deviations from the 1992–2019 average pace: 0 is that average, below 0 slower, above faster.
What makes up Sep 2026
- Industrial production+2.8% a year · 0.09 of the index
- Nonfarm payrolls+0.3% a year · −0.18 of the index
- Real retail sales+3.0% a year · 0.07 of the index
- Real goods tradenot yet reported
- Container port activity−1.3% vs the usual for the month · −0.03 of the index
Growth is each series’ latest three months on the three before, annualised (for the ports, against their usual change for the time of year); the shares add up to the index. A component not yet reported is left out and the others’ weights rescaled, so the month is revised when it arrives. Ports not yet in this month: Port of Long Beach.
The index since 1992
Monthly, with U.S. recessions as the NBER dates them. Zero is the usual pace of 1992–2019. In 3 of the 3 recessions since 1992 the index fell more than one standard deviation below it. The backtest below sets out how it behaved around each, and when it dipped with no recession under way.
Grey bands: U.S. recessions as dated by the NBER.
Show the figures as a table
CK proprietary indicatorCK Economics · as of October 17, 2026Sources & methods
- Sources
- CK Economics
- Period covered
- Jun 1992 – Sep 2026
- Source figures as of
- October 17, 2026
- Geography
- United States
- Sector
- Whole economy (not a single sector)
- Seasonal adjustment
- Seasonally adjusted
- Transformations
- Composite of five official monthly series, standardised and weighted by CK Economics
- Revisions
- Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
- Data status
- Current
- Limitations
- Not an official statistic: a CK Economics composite. Its backtest uses today’s revised figures, which flatter what it would have shown at the time; the latest month is revised as late components report.
Full series and downloads: CK Momentum Index
What moved it, month by month
Each component’s share of the index over the last twelve months, in the index’s own units: its standardised growth times its weight (rescaled over the components the month has), divided by the scale that gives the index its standard deviations. A dash is a month the component had not reported.
| Month | Industrial production | Nonfarm payrolls | Real retail sales | Real goods trade | Container port activity | Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | 0.09 | −0.18 | 0.07 | – | −0.03 | −0.04 |
| Aug 2026 | 0.10 | −0.14 | 0.11 | −0.05 | 0.02 | 0.05 |
| Jul 2026 | 0.12 | −0.09 | 0.14 | −0.13 | −0.17 | −0.14 |
| Jun 2026 | 0.21 | −0.07 | 0.19 | 0.04 | −0.19 | 0.17 |
| May 2026 | 0.12 | −0.08 | 0.14 | 0.30 | −0.14 | 0.34 |
| Apr 2026 | 0.12 | −0.15 | 0.00 | 0.40 | 0.21 | 0.59 |
| Mar 2026 | −0.03 | −0.15 | −0.17 | 0.29 | 0.36 | 0.30 |
| Feb 2026 | −0.07 | −0.21 | −0.21 | 0.12 | 0.36 | −0.01 |
| Jan 2026 | −0.20 | −0.21 | −0.16 | 0.08 | 0.04 | −0.45 |
| Dec 2025 | −0.24 | −0.26 | −0.10 | −0.03 | −0.33 | −0.96 |
| Nov 2025 | −0.21 | −0.23 | −0.08 | 0.07 | −0.33 | −0.78 |
| Oct 2025 | −0.10 | −0.23 | 0.01 | −0.11 | 0.09 | −0.33 |
Against past recessions
How the index behaved around each recession since it begins (Jun 1992 to Sep 2026), using the NBER’s peak and trough months. The line of −1, one standard deviation below the usual pace, is a yardstick for this comparison only: it is not a threshold that calls a recession, and nothing here is a forecast. The counts below run to Sep 2025; the months since are left out because the NBER dates a turning point only well after it.
| Recession (peak to trough) | At the peak | Below −1 from | Low | Back above 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2001 – Nov 2001 | −1.01 | Feb 2001, 1 month before the peak | −1.65 (Sep 2001) | Apr 2002, 5 months after the trough |
| Dec 2007 – Jun 2009 | −0.34 | Mar 2008, 3 months after the peak | −5.33 (Feb 2009) | Sep 2009, 3 months after the trough |
| Feb 2020 – Apr 2020 | −0.32 | Mar 2020, 1 month after the peak | −5.40 (May 2020) | Aug 2020, 4 months after the trough |
- Average in recession months
- −2.29
- 31 months
- Average in expansion months
- 0.25
- 369 months
- Months below −1
- 25 of 31
- recession months; 15 of 369 expansion months
- Separation (AUC)
- 0.97
- How often a recession month reads lower than an expansion month: 0.5 would mean no difference, 1 that every recession month reads lower.
Below the line with no recession under way
- Jan 2002 – Feb 2002: within six months after a recession ended
- Nov 2002: during an expansion, with no NBER-dated recession beginning within a year
- Apr 2019: within a year before a recession, recovering before it began
- Nov 2022 – Jan 2023: during an expansion, with no NBER-dated recession beginning within a year
- May 2025 – Jul 2025: too recent to say whether a recession followed
Limits of the backtest
It runs on today’s figures, after years of revisions, not on what was published at the time; payrolls and industrial production in particular were revised a good deal around recessions, so the index would have looked less clear in real time. Three recessions are too few to measure a typical lead or lag with confidence, and the 2020 recession was a sudden shock rather than a slowdown. The base period that defines “usual” runs to December 2019 and includes two of the three recessions.
Method
Growth and smoothing. For each component, the growth of its latest three-month average over the three months before, annualised. Those two averages are the only smoothing, so the index turns no later than they do. The container counts are not seasonally adjusted by the ports, so each port’s growth has its own average for that calendar month, over its months up to 2019, taken off, and the ports are combined in proportion to their containers over the previous year, over the ports that have reported the month. A port that reports late only drops out of the months it has not reported.
Standardisation. Each component’s growth less its average over a fixed base period, from its first month to December 2019, divided by its standard deviation over the same period, and capped at ±4 so that a month like April 2020 cannot outweigh the others.
Weights and the composite. The weighted average of the standardised components a month has, with the weights rescaled over those present; a month needs four of the five. That average is divided by its own base-period standard deviation, so the index reads in standard deviations: 0 is the average pace of 1992–2019. Because the base period is fixed, a new month leaves the history as it was; revisions to the official figures do move it.
Gaps. October 2025, never published for the BLS price indexes behind real retail sales and real trade because of the federal shutdown, is filled from the months either side. Any other gap, a component more than four months behind, or a recent move in an input far beyond anything in its history (a figure in the wrong unit, say) stops the update until someone has looked, and the last published index stays up.
Coverage. The United States only, for now. The index will be extended to another economy only where all five kinds of input are published free every month with enough history before 2020 to standardise them; for most economies we profile, monthly port and real trade series of that length are the missing pieces.
Components and weights
Industrial production25%
Federal Reserve Board, Industrial Production: Total Index (INDPRO), via FRED
Base period Jun 1990 – Dec 2019: average growth +1.7%, standard deviation 5.0 points
Nonfarm payrolls25%
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, All Employees, Total Nonfarm (PAYEMS), via FRED
Base period Jun 1990 – Dec 2019: average growth +1.1%, standard deviation 1.7 points
Real retail sales20%
U.S. Census Bureau, Advance Real Retail and Food Services Sales (RRSFS), via FRED
Base period Jun 1992 – Dec 2019: average growth +2.0%, standard deviation 4.3 points
Real goods trade15%
U.S. Census Bureau and BEA, exports and imports of goods (BOPGEXP, BOPGIMP), deflated by BLS export and import price indexes (IQ, IR), via FRED
Base period Jun 1992 – Dec 2019: average growth +4.3%, standard deviation 9.3 points
Container port activity15%
Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland, total TEUs, as published on CK Economics
Base period Jan 1996 – Dec 2019: standard deviation 19.6 points
It is computed in our data pipeline with the daily data update. The full series and its download are on the dataset page; how CK labels its own indicators is in our research standards.