The Chicago Business Barometer, which is also called the Chicago PMI, rose from a post-pandemic low of 35.4 in May to 47.4 in June. Even though the reading is still below zero, it is the highest it has been since November.
Readings below 50 mean that activity is contracting.
When the Wall Street Journal polled economists, they thought the reading would be 40.
The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago and MNI work together to make the index. It comes out three minutes before it does for everyone else, at 9:45 a.m. Eastern time.
It is one of the last regional manufacturing indices to come out before Monday, when the national ISM data for June comes out.
The ISM factory index, which is a good indicator of how manufacturing is doing across the country, has been going down for two months now.
Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial Corp, thinks that manufacturing will start to grow again in the next few months, but he thinks that progress will be slow and uneven.