Empire State Factory Sector Index Declines Sharply

*Definition of NY Empire State Index  : is based on survey responses by an unchanged pool of about 200 top manufacturing executives such as CEO, NY based. They reply to the 11 components about the business conditions from a month earlier and future expectation after 6 months. Detail indicators were calculated by subtracting percentage replied as 'increase' of indicators from replied as 'decrease', while are not considering 'hold' opinions. New York is the 3rd largest state as a contributor of real GDP in 2014 following California and Texas, and NY's GDP was 8.1% of total United States GDP in 2014.

So, the headline number, -14.9, means more than by 14.9%p CEO in NY based manufacturers revealed an anxiety against last month's conditions, although the difference of these about the expectation ahead 6 months rose from a month earlier. This -14.9 is the lowest level in 6 years.

In details, it looks like there are headwinds from the burden of inventories apparently. We could see this on some detail indicators such as Inventories, New Orders, and Shipments. Meanwhile, the employment indicator showed positive number, but its level is very low relatively.

Albeit someone could argue NY is not only rationale to forecast whole US economy, current economic activities seem to be somewhat slow for now, at least...

Empire State Manufacturing Survey	Aug	Jul	Jun	Aug'14	2014	2013	2012
General Business Conditions (Diffusion Index, %, SA)	-14.92	3.86	-1.98	15.10	11.83	3.87	4.22
New Orders	-15.70	-3.50	-2.12	14.24	7.89	1.16	1.46
Shipments	-13.79	7.88	12.01	21.93	12.09	4.52	11.20
Unfilled Orders	-4.55	-7.45	-4.81	-7.95	-9.03	-8.74	-8.83
Delivery Time	-4.55	0.00	-1.92	-5.68	-5.17	-3.52	-0.30
Inventories	-17.27	-8.51	1.92	-14.77	-1.80	-5.73	-2.91
Number of Employees	1.82	3.19	8.65	13.64	10.85	3.73	8.62
Prices Paid	7.27	7.45	9.62	27.27	20.90	21.53	24.71