The latest release of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Outlook Survey (BOS) for April indicated a pullback in the regions manufacturing activity with the current activity index declining notably to a level of 18.50 while the future activity index also declined to a level of 33.6.Both indices are still indicating expansion though the size of the latest pullback clearly demands that closer attention be paid to these series in future releases.
The following chart shows the current and future activity indexes both with their corresponding 3-month moving averages. The red line marks the threshold between contraction and expansion for these diffusion indexes.
