The amounts: The Empire State business conditions index, which is a measure of manufacturing activity in the state and is run by the New York Fed, went up 9.6 points in June but stayed in negative territory at a 6 reading, the regional Fed bank said Monday.
A poll by the Wall Street Journal found that economists thought the number would only go up by a small amount, to negative 10.5.
Any reading below zero means things are getting worse. This is the seventh month in a row that the colon has been small.
Important facts: In June, the new orders index went up 15.5 points to -1. That reading is the best in nine months.
It was the best month for shipments in seven months, with a 4.5-point rise to 3.3.
Backorders went up 9.1 points to 1 in June. The report added a new indicator called “supply availability,” which went from zero to one in the month.
The price indices were not as high or low in June. Both of the employment indicators got worse.
Businesses were more upbeat about the future than they have been in over two years. The index for how business will be in the future went up 16 points to 30.1.
Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Chase, says that the Empire State index has been going up and down in a slightly negative range for the past year and a half. He also said that some other manufacturing data had looked a little better.
The national ISM factory index fell to 48.7% in May, the second month in a row that it fell. This makes people even less optimistic about the future of U.S. manufacturing.
Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial Corp., said that he thinks manufacturing will continue to grow, but that it will be “stopped and uneven.”
