Philly FED data

The Philly FED data came in much worse then expected and an about face from last month.  Here is the chart.

Source

I thought maybe the bump last month was possibly a Sandy affect.  I thought it might continue into the current reading.  However, it took a pretty big plunge again.

Here is the new orders index.

The new orders could not build on either of the last two blips into positive territory.  There is a much more pervasive negativity then at any other time since the last recession.

Here is the employment index.

The employment index has been negative for many months now.  It looks a lot like it did during the last recession.  It is kind of interesting that we have not seen any of the other employment data show any negative characteristics.  I had theorized many months ago that the low amount of hiring in the recovery could lead to a longer lag in firing during a recession then normal.  This may indeed be the case.

This is the future capital expenditure chart.

A lot of people say that the fiscal cliff debate had put off a lot of cap ex plans.  Indeed there was a pretty sizable dip late last year.  However, it rebounded some in Dec. before the deal at year end and dipped again this month.  The current readings are generally bouncing around levels that were a bit lower then at the start of the last recession.  They are not clearly showing a rebound yet.

This data series goes back to 1968 unlike the Empire survey which is much more recent.  I looked back at all the negative readings in Jan. and it pretty interesting.  The years are 1969, 74, 75, 80, 82, 90, 91, 96, 2001, 08, 09.  If you are familiar with the dates of recessions in the U.S. you will recognize that every one of those years but 1996 was associated with a recession.  Only one time out of eleven was the economy not in a recession or just coming out as in the 1991 case.  In 1996 the Dec. print was 19.5 and the Feb. print was 4.9.  There wasn't any prevailing weakness around the negative Jan. print (-14.7) that year.  That clearly is not the case this time.  We are starting out the year weak and the index was negative most of the latter half of last year.  This is yet another piece of data that looks very recession like.

Bob