Evidence That Manufacturing Declines Are Moderating

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 1, 12:49PM EDT · Published Apr 1, 9:18AM EDT

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The Institute for Supply Management has issued some data for March showing that the decline in manufacturing has at least moderated. The report came in at 36.3, which is above estimates of 35.0 and above the 35.8 reading from February. The prices paid component was 31.0, also up from 29.0 in February and the employment index came in at 28.1, up from 26.1 in February. The new orders index is still in contraction as far as the growth meter is concerned, but it came in substantially higher at 41.2 in March over a reading of 33.1 in February. There was also a decline in the inventories component at 32.2 in March, down from 37.0 in February. This is still dismal. It just is not as dismal as it could have been. There is also the notion that as soon as orders get better that there will be a much higher increase in activity because the inventories are continuing to contract. This data is probably a side show compared with the worries caused by the labor data this morning.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2009

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.