The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, like other district FRBs (New York, Philadelphia, Richmond and Dallas), tracks its region’s manufacturing activity by surveying a number of important indicators such as general activity, production, shipments, orders, employment and prices for raw materials and finished products.
The latest results are indicating that the assessments of manufacturing activity remained at a contraction level of -9 in January with more component measure declining than increasing while prices paid for raw materials declined to -14.
It's important to note that the current level of the Composite index is roughly equivalent to the level seen during the middle of the Great Recession seemingly indicating, yet again, that our current expansion has drawn to a close.
