Of the five Federal Reserve districts which have released their March manufacturing surveys – one is in expansion and the rest are contracting.
Analyst Opinion of Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey
Important subindices new orders significantly declined (and are now in contraction) and unfilled orders insignificantly improved and remains deep in contraction. This should be considered a much worse report relative to last month.
The expectations from Econoday were -32.0 to 6.2 (consensus -6.0) for the general activity index and the reported value was -35.3. From the Dallas Fed:
Texas factory activity declined sharply in March, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, plummeted from 16.4 to -35.3, suggesting a notable contraction in output since last month.
Other measures of manufacturing activity also point to a sudden decline in March. The new orders index dropped to -41.3, its lowest reading since March 2009 during the Great Recession. Similarly, the growth rate of orders index fell to -44.9. The capacity utilization and shipments indexes fell to -33.4 and -33.8, respectively, also the lowest readings since the Great Recession. Capital expenditures declined sharply, with the index dropping from 6.9 to -34.3.
Perceptions of broader business conditions turned quite pessimistic in March. The general business activity index plunged from 1.2 to -70.0, and the company outlook index fell from 3.6 to -65.6. Both March readings are the lowest since the survey began in June 2004. The index measuring uncertainty regarding companies’ outlooks surged from 11.0 to 62.6.
Dallas Fed (hyperlink to reports):
z dallas_man.PNG
Source: Dallas Fed
Summary of all Federal Reserve Districts Manufacturing:
Richmond Fed (hyperlink to reports):
z richmond_man.PNG
Kansas Fed (hyperlink to reports):
z kansas_man.PNG
Philly Fed (hyperlink to reports):
z philly fed1.PNG
New York Fed (hyperlink to reports):
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Federal Reserve Industrial Production – Actual Data (hyperlink to report):
Holding this and other survey’s Econintersect follows accountable for their predictions, the following graph compares the hard data from Industrial Products manufacturing subindex (dark blue bar) and US Census manufacturing shipments (red bar) to the Dallas Fed survey (light blue bar).
Comparing Surveys to Hard Data:
z survey1.png
In the above graphic, hard data is the long bars, and surveys are the short bars. The arrows on the left side are the key to growth or contraction.
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