The latest release of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Outlook Survey (BOS) for May indicated a notable pullback in the regions manufacturing activity with the current activity index plunging to a level of 3.9 while the future activity index also declined to a level of 16.6.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.
