Courtesy of Doug Short’s Advisor Perspectives.
The Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey business conditions indicator measures activity in the following states: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, western Missouri, and northern New Mexico
Quarterly data for this indicator dates back to 1995, but monthly data is only available from 2001.
Here is an excerpt from the latest report:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. –The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released the May Manufacturing Survey today. According to Chad Wilkerson, vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the survey revealed that Tenth District manufacturing activity declined modestly. “Regional factory activity continued to drift down in May, as weakness in energy and agriculture-related manufacturing persisted,” said Wilkerson. “Still, firms expect a modest pickup in activity later this year.”
Tenth District manufacturing activity continued to decline modestly, while producers’ expectations for future activity remained slightly positive. Most raw material price indexes rose moderately in May, but selling prices fell slightly. The month-over-month composite index was -5 in May, which is largely unchanged from April and March readings. The composite index is an average of the production, new orders, employment, supplier delivery time, and raw materials inventory indexes. [Full release here]
Here is a snapshot of the complete Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey.
The next chart is an overlay of the general and future outlook indexes — the outlook six months ahead. Future factory indexes fell in May to 4 from last month’s 10.
For comparison, here is the latest ISM Manufacturing survey.
Let’s compare all five Regional Manufacturing indicators. Here is a three-month moving average overlay of each since 2001 (for those with data).
Here is the same chart including the average of the five.
Here are the remaining four monthly manufacturing indicators that we track:
Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS)
Empire State Manufacturing Survey
Fifth District Manufacturing Survey (Richmond)
