As I outlined earlier this week, a reasonable temporary workaround for industrial production unaffected by the recent hurricanes is to average the 4 regional Fed surveys, minus Dallas, plus the Chicago PMI.  Over the long run, each +5 in the average of the indexes is consistent with a +.1 in the manufacturing component of industrial production.  Because these indexes have been running "hot" this year compared with industrial production, I further suggested subtracting .3 from the result to be confident in a positive trend.

All of these indexes have been reported for September.  Here are the numbers:

Empire State: 24.4

Philadelphia Fed: 23.8

Richmond Fed: 19

Kansas City Fed: 17

Chicago PMI: 30.4 (adjusted)*

Interestingly, even the Dallas Fed's index was positive, at 19.5!

*Since Chicago is on a 0 to 100 scale with 50 being neutral, we subtract 50 from the raw number of 65.2, which gives us 15.2, and then double the result.

The average of the 5 is 22.9. 

Dividing that by 5 gives us +.5.

Subtracting .3 gives us +.2.

We can be reasonably confident that underlying trend in industrial production in September, despite the hurricanes, has been positive.