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

The latest release of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Business Outlook Survey (BOS) for December indicated a notable improvement in the regions manufacturing activity with the current activity index climbing to a level of 10.3 while the future activity index improved to a level of 44.1.

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.

Production Pullback: Industrial Production November 2011

Today, the Federal Reserve released their monthly read of industrial production and capacity utilization showing a pullback with total industrial production declining 0.22% from October and rising 3.74% above the level seen in November 2010.

Capacity utilization declined 0.30% from October climbing just 2.63% above the level seen in November of 2010 to stand at 77.79%

It's important to recognize that though the "recovery" is well over two years old, both industrial production and capacity utilization are notably below the peaks set in late 2007.

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey: December 2011

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey consists of a series of diffusion indices distilled from a monthly survey of New York regional manufacturing executives and seeks to identify trends across 22 different current and future manufacturing related activities.

Today’s report showed a notable improvement for both current and future assessments of manufacturing activity with the current activity index climbing to 9.53 while future activity jumped to just 52.33.

Current prices paid increased to 24.42 while current new orders improved 5.1 and assessments of future new orders improved to 54.65.