Little Economic Data, but Big Miss

This morning's New York, Empire F_E_D Manufacturing Index, one of the only pieces of major US economic data today, printed at a miss of consensus, the 5th consecutive negative print and had some large declines.

General Business Conditions slid from last month's -5.22 to -8.1 on consensus of -1 making this the 5th consecutive month of sub-zero prints.

New Orders went negative from +3.08 to -3.07.

Shipments fell to 8.8 from 14.8.

Prices paid (input costs) rose a little, Prices Received (selling prices) fell from 6.1 to 1.1 or what is known in the manufacturing world as "margin compression", higher costs, lower sales in several ways (prices and volume).

The Forward Looking Expectations did rise from 12.88 to 18.66 reflecting an attitude that NY manufacturers expect better conditions 6 months out.

All in all, not good for US Manufacturing.


Through the day we have several Treasury auctions on deck, China's activity will be closely watched as it has waned in recent auctions.

ES saw some volatility through the night, not much of a surprise...

 S&P Futures gap up last night in to a negative divergence, but start going positive by the European opening.

That divergence lifted the Futures from a gap fill to a bit higher than Friday's close, thus the slight S&P gap this morning.

We'll watch to see what develops from here as we are now in line.