FYI: If you were looking for signs of hope for the manufacturing sector in today’s Empire Manufacturing report, you didn’t get it. Heading into the report for January, economists were expecting the headline index to come in at a level of -4, so there was hope that it could possibly beat expectations and get back into the black. In the end, though, there was no such luck. In fact, at a level of -19.37 this month’s report was the weakest reading since April 2009. Needless to say, things aren’t getting any better for the manufacturing sector in the region. Expectations for the next six months dropped even more, falling from 35.7 down to 9.5. That 26.1 point decline in the index was the second largest in the report’s history (2001), behind only the 61 point decline in September 2001 when the entire region came to a complete standstill in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/empire-manufacturing-breaks-down/
