Thursday, November 17, 2011

Philadelphia Feeling: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Outlook Survey November 2011

The latest release of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Outlook Survey (BOS) for November indicated a weakening in the regions manufacturing activity with the current activity index falling to a level of 3.6 while the future activity index improved to a level of 41.9.

While about half the component measures turned down in November, more data is needed in order to get a more complete sense of how the economy is trending.

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.