For two years now, the ISM Chicago Business Barometer has not failed to disappoint. Whether you were bullish or bearish on the manufacturing sector, if you were frustrated by the index one month you needed only wait to the next, maybe two, to be turned around. The index value for October 2015 was 56.2, for example, but 48.7 the month after and 42.9 the month after that. Then in January 2016, the index spiked back to 55.6 as if nothing had ever happened.

The behavior of the Chicago BB at the end of last year was the same as it was in the beginning of it; the PMI registered 57.6 for November 2016, dropping to (revised) 53.9 last December and now 50.3 in January 2017, nearing the so-called contraction level all over again. Midwest manufacturers, including a heavy proportion of auto production, seem to be confused.

Small wonder, however, that they might be, given that they are constantly told one thing only to find economic reality often sharply different. At least in the Chicago version, respondents due to this unclear overall picture have been more grounded. In other PMI’s, such as the ISM’s national manufacturing survey, optimism has been less restrained.

The index value for January 2017 was a robust 57, the highest since late 2014. This is, of course, nothing that we haven’t seen before as related by nothing more than that comparison. With most of the economic world, outside of the Chicago region, apparently, breathing an increasing sigh of relief after last year’s near recession, sentiment was bound to increase no matter what. The introduction of “reflation” possibilities may have pushed that to more extreme levels.

Given that this is nothing new, on the same upswing just three years ago, corroborating sentiment is a necessary task. PMI’s aren’t very useful to begin with as economic indications, but they may be in this manner as a method of checking “reflation” as merely imagined.