Kansas City Fed Survey: February Activity Highest Since 2011

The Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey business conditions indicator measures activity in the following states: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, western Missouri, and northern New Mexico.

Quarterly data for this indicator dates back to 1995, but monthly data is only available from 2001. New seasonal adjustment factors were introduced in January 2017 and slight revisions were made to previous data as a result.

Here is an excerpt from the latest report:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. –The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released the February 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 expanded further with continued strong expectations.

“This was the highest reading for our month-over-month composite index since June 2011,” said Wilkerson. “In addition, the future composite index was the highest since our survey switched to a monthly frequency in 2001.” [Full PDF release here]

Here is a snapshot of the complete Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey.

The next chart is an overlay of the general and future outlook indexes — the outlook six months ahead. Future factory indexes increased in February to 29 from last month's 27.

For comparison, here is the latest ISM Manufacturing survey.

Let's compare all five Regional Manufacturing indicators. Here is a three-month moving average overlay of each since 2001 (for those with data).

Here is the same chart including the average of the five.

Here are the remaining four monthly manufacturing indicators that we track:

Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS)
Empire State Manufacturing Survey
Fifth District Manufacturing Survey (Richmond)
Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey
Regional Fed Overview

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