Empire: Slight Erosion, but Capex Plans Up

-

Today’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey showed little change in manufacturing activity in New York State in early March. Most of the indices drifted lower, but only slightly. The survey’s headline general business conditions index inched into negative territory in March at -0.2 compared to February’s 7.1 reading. The new orders index was little changed m/m, and the shipments index eased to -6.9 from -1.0 in February. On the employment front, the employee index moved slightly higher, while the average workweek moved slightly lower. The six-month expectations indexes generally moved modestly lower m/m, but the overall business conditions expectations index remained positive at 31. The one index bucking the downward drift was capex expectations, which rose to 21.6 from 18.2 in February. The survey was taken by the New York Fed between March 2 and March 9. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Philly Fed State Coincident Indexes Solidly in the Green

-
The Philadelphia Fed released its August 2025 State Coincident Indexes today. The August statistics indicate continued economic growth across the majority of the states, with 44 of the 50 states posting index value increases over the prior three months. While five states posted declines, Maryland saw the largest drop with a three-month decrease of 0.6% in its index. This is possibly  the result of an increase in Maryland’s unemployment rate to 3.6% in August from 3.3% in June, and a modest decrease in manufacturing payrolls of 1,500 over the same period.
Read more

This Week’s State Economic Releases

-
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia is scheduled to release its August 2025 State Coincident Indexes this Wednesday, September 24. In last month’s release, the Philadelphia Fed reported that over the three month period ending July 2025, these economic indexes had increased in 41 states, decreased in eight, and remained unchanged in one . On Friday, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release its annual update of state gross domestic product, personal income, and personal consumption expenditures. In this annual exercise, the BEA typically looks back five years. In last year’s update report, the revisions to these three economic statistics were very modest. It should be noted that Friday’s report will contain both the annual revisions and new estimates of state gross domestic product, personal income, and personal consumption expenditures. This will be the first time that the BEA will be reporting all three of these indicators in one unified release. 
Read more

UNC Charlotte: North Carolina Economy Forecast to Grow 2.1% in 2026

-
The University of North Carolina Charlotte is forecasting real GDP growth of 2.1% for the state in 2026.  In the latest release of its North Carolina Economic Forecast, UNC Charlotte Belk College of Business expects this growth to be led by the information sector at 3.9%, agriculture at 3.8% and mining at 3.5%. The report also forecasts a 1.6% increase in state employment in 2026. While the report identifies a few risks to the forecast, it notes that tariffs are a “wild card”. You can access the press release here and the full forecast report here .
Read more