Philly Fed Slightly Positive After Two Months of Contraction, but New Orders and Shipments Negative, Workweek Collapsed

In what likely amounts to a bit of economic noise, the Philadelphia Fed regional manufacturing report posted a rise of 1.9, slightly beating the economic consensus of 0.
Unlike Monday’s Empire State report which is pointing to out-and-out weakness for the November factory sector, the Philly Fed’s November report is no worse than flat and points to little month-to-month change for a sector, however, that continues to struggle. The Philly Fed index ended two months of contraction with a small gain of 1.9 which is near enough to the Econoday consensus for no change. But new orders are not in the plus column, at minus 3.7 for a second straight negative score. Shipments are also in the wrong column, at minus 2.5 for what is also a second straight negative month. The average workweek is down very sharply in the Mid-Atlantic factory sector, at minus 16.2 which doesn’t point to strength ahead for employment.

This post was published at Global Economic Analysis on November 19, 2015.