Philly Fed's August Survey

[Michael Perelman]

I recall a recent study indicating that the ISM survey, though widely
reported, is worthless as a leading indicator.
On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 05:24:07PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> John K. Taber wrote:
> 
> >Can somebody tell me more about the significance if any of this
> >report, and why Norris seems to contradict the report summary's
> >mild tone?
> 
> The Philly Fed survey is useful, but mainly as a (regional) glimpse 
> of what's coming in the (national) Institute for Supply Management 
> (ISM) survey of purchasing managers (formerly known as the National 
> Association of Purchasing Management [NAPM] survey). And the ISM is 
> mainly a glimpse of what's coming in the Fed's industrial production 
> index. Soooo, the Philly Fed is a selective foretaste of a foretaste 
> of a measure of one portion of the U.S. economy. What was surprising 
> about this one was that it was much weaker than expected. But that's 
> no guaranteee that the ISM will be weaker than expected, nor that the 
> IP number's going to be bad. It was just another piece of bad news in 
> an environment already fairly saturated with bad news.
> 
> Doug

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu