May Philly Fed +4.5 vs +8.0 expected

Philly Fed business index:

• Two-year high
• Prior was +15.5 (was a two-year high)
• Six-month index +32.0 vs +34.3 prior
• Employment: -7.9 vs -10.7 prior
• New orders: -7.9 vs +12.2 prior
• Prices paid: +18.7 vs +23.0 prior
• Prices received: +34.4 vs +5.5 prior
• Shipments: -1.2 vs +19.1 prior
• Unfilled orders: -11.5 vs +0.8 prior
• Delivery times: -0.8 vs -9.4 prior
• Inventories: -10.1 vs -8.9 prior
• Avg employee workweek: -8.3 vs -18.7 prior

There is some cooling here but the index and prices paid numbers were both very high a month ago so it’s more normalization than weakness. The drop in new orders is a concern though.

The special question in the survey shows benign or improving inflationary metrics.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.