Richmond Fed Manufacturing Survey Jumps Back Into Expansion In May 2018

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Of the three regional Federal Reserve surveys released to date, all are in expansion. 

Analyst Opinion of Richmond Manufacturing

The important Richmond Fed subcategories significantly accelerated - and are now back into expansion, It seems last months report was an anomaly.

Market expectations from Bloomberg / Econoday was 6 to 16 (consensus 10). The actual survey value was 16 [note that values above zero represent expansion].

Summary of all Federal Reserve Districts Manufacturing:

Richmond Fed (hyperlink to reports):

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Kansas Fed (hyperlink to reports):

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Dallas Fed (hyperlink to reports):

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Philly Fed (hyperlink to reports):

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New York Fed (hyperlink to reports):

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Federal Reserve Industrial Production - Actual Data (hyperlink to report):

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Holding this and other survey's Econintersect follows accountable for their predictions, the following graph compares the hard data from Industrial Products manufacturing subindex (dark blue bar) and US Census manufacturing shipments (lighter blue bar) to the Richmond Fed survey (darkest bar).

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In the above graphic, hard data is the long bars, and surveys are the short bars. The arrows on the left side are the key to growth or contraction.