After soaring unexpectedly to two-year highs in February (as stocks ignored the global disruptions), Philly Fed’s Business Outlook Survey has collapsed in March. From 36.7 in February, Philly Fed plunged to -12.7 (massively worse than the +8 estimate from clearly cognitively challenged analysts). That is the weakest level since September 2011…
This is the biggest drop in Phily Fed… ever…
Under the hood – everything tumbled…
- March prices paid fell to 4.8 vs 16.4
- New orders fell to -15.5 vs 33.6
- Employment fell to 4.1 vs 9.8
- Shipments fell to 0.2 vs 25.2
- Delivery time fell to -9.1 vs 2.7
- Inventories fell to 1.7 vs 11.8
- Prices received fell to 6.8 vs 17.1
- Unfilled orders fell to -7.4 vs 7.4
- Average workweek fell to 0.5 vs 10.3
And worse still, the outlooks plunged…
- Six-month outlook fell to 35.2 vs 45.4
- Six-month outlook for capex fell to 12.0 vs 29.8
New Orders crashed and jobs are set to fall further…
So the question is – WTF were people thinking in February?
