Chicago Fed

S&P 500 futures are higher, continuing on yesterday's momentum, after European and Asian shares also rose alongside a rebound in oil, as the year-end performance chase appears to be accelerating. There were several different moving parts in a mixed European session, in which early Euro strength gave way to weakness...

... which in turn pushed the Stoxx 600 and US index futures higher, rising above yesterday's session high on negligible volumes. 

Just one week ago, when the US dollar was surging when one after another Fed president were making hawkish statements (who can forget Bullard's forecast that a rate hike may occur as soon as April), one of the speeches which surprised the market the most, was that by Chicago Fed's permadove Chuck Evans, who on March 22 said that the Federal Reserve is on track for "gentle, gradual" rate hikes unless economic data comes in a lot stronger than expected or inflation picks up faster than anticipated, a top Fed official said on Tuesday.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Recession Probabilities Rise

As I penned earlier this week:

It would appear that The Chicago Fed's own National Activity Index (CFNAI) is not part of the The Fed's "data" that it is so "dependent" on. CFNAI has been in contraction (sub-zero) for 9 of the 11 months of 2015 and today's November print, missing expectations once again, tumbled to its lowest since May.

It would seem like Fed rate hike timing is questionable at best?