Leading Indicators and Philly Fed Both Positive, With Inflationary Pressure

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Survey, or the Philly Fed, rose to 17.8 for the month of June. Thursday’s reading was much better than expected as Bloomberg was calling for a reading of 13.0, from a range of 10.0 to 19.0. The reading from May was 15.4.

The Conference Board’s index of leading indicators was released for the month of May, which means that leading indicators are not so leading after all. Much of the data is already known well ahead of the report. Still, a gain is a gain, and the leading indicators rose by 0.5% from a downwardly revised 0.3% in the prior month. Bloomberg was calling for a gain of 0.6%.

One thing to consider is the inflationary aspect of the Philly Fed. The “prices paid” rose all the way up to 35.0 in June from 23.0 in May. Other big gains were seen in new orders, to 16.8 from 10.5.

Stocks are trying to hold on to their gains but have pulled back from highs earlier in the morning. At 10:10 a.m. ET, we had seen that the S&P 500 was up 0.60 and the DJIA was fighting for a couple points between being up and down on the day.

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