The Empire state’s Federal Reserve District’s manufacturing index posted its third consecutive gain. Activity in the New York district rose to 19.53 in February from 13.48 in the month of January, considerably higher than the Dow Jones estimate of 15.0 and even higher again than the 14.75 expected in the Bloomberg consensus target. This reading for February also appears to be the highest level we have seen in about a year.
More important is that many businesses are now expecting to actually increase their capital spending budgets in 2012. New orders were down to 9.73 while shipments rose to 22.79. Employment fell marginally to 11.76 from 12.09; prices paid fell to 25.88 from 26.37; but prices received also fell to 15.29 from 23.08 in January.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank conducts this monthly survey of manufacturers located in the state of New York in a variety of industries. The same pool of about 175 manufacturing executives is sent a questionnaire on the first of each month to report the change in a variety of indicators from the previous month and they offer an opinion on the likely direction of those indicators in the six months ahead.
JON C. OGG
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