It doesn’t grab the same headline space as inflation or jobs, but manufacturing’s still a really important economic indicator with the juice to move stocks over the medium- and long-term.
Some of the most important data we get from this sector comes from players in the New York and Philadelphia regions - they’re still American manufacturing hotspots.
The numbers we got today were… mixed. In Philadelphia, there were big misses. Manufacturing had been contracting for most of the time since mid-2022. It spiked, sharply positive, in January only to fall by about half in this latest readout.
In New York, the Empire State Manufacturing Index had a negative forecast, as last month’s number was negative, but today’s reading was positive.
So what does this tell us about the health of the economy?
We’ll find out as we look at how to play some of the big industrials - GE, John Deere, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, and many more. That’s coming up right now…