Richmond Fed Unexpectedly Crashes To Lowest In Over 6 Years As Order Backlogs Disintegrate
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Tue, 07/23/2019
After a handful of mixed regional Fed survey, moments ago the Richmond Fed printed for the month of June, and if it serves as a tiebreaker, then the US economy is deep in a recession.
Expected to rebound modestly from already a near-contractionary print of 3 to 5 following the recent euphoric Philly Fed print, the mid-Atlantic index instead suffered its biggest drop in two years, dropping by 14 points to a whopping -12, the lowest print since January 2013…
… as all three components — shipments, new orders, and employment — registered declines.
The biggest reason behind the unexpected plunge – the orderbook has suddenly disintegrated as order backlogs fell to −26, the lowest reading since April 2009.
It gets worse: firms reported worsening local business conditions, as this index dropped from 7 to −18, its largest one-month drop on record. Of course, there was optimism, and respondents remained somewhat optimistic that conditions would improve in the coming months.
The weakness was broad based as Survey results further indicated that employment and the average workweek declined in July. However, wage growth continued among survey respondents. Firms continued to struggle to find workers with the necessary skills and expect that struggle to continue in the next six months.
The Rest…HERE
