by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2019 11:00:00 AM

From the Kansas City Fed: Tenth District Manufacturing Eased Slightly in October

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released the October Manufacturing Survey today. According to Chad Wilkerson, vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the survey revealed that Tenth District manufacturing activity eased slightly in October, and expectations for future activity inched lower but remained slightly positive.

“Overall regional factory activity declined again in October,” said Wilkerson. “This was driven by further deterioration in durable goods production, as nondurable manufacturing expanded slightly for the second straight month.”
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The month-over-month composite index was -3 in October, down slightly from -2 in September, but above -6 in August. The composite index is an average of the production, new orders, employment, supplier delivery time, and raw materials inventory indexes.
emphasis added

Many of the comments are downbeat: "Trade war with China is really hurting our export business …", “Less sales to China means less manufacturing.”, “Backlog dropping like a rock in past several months."

Another weak regional manufacturing report.