When you get a crap number and the market goes up you know the expectation was "Armageddon."
Responses to the Business Outlook Survey this month suggest that regional manufacturing activity is continuing to contract, but declines are less widespread than in August. The survey’s broad indicators for activity, shipments, and new orders all remained negative for the second consecutive month. Responding firms, however, indicated that employment was slightly higher this month. The broadest indicator of future activity remained positive and rebounded this month, suggesting that recent declines are not expected to continue over the next six months.
Eh, I'm not impressed.
One good numbers in there - the employees number stopped falling apart. But - the workweek did not, which makes one wonder whether seasonal factors are involved in this more than anything else. I cannot get excited about alleged "stabilization" in employment in that survey with hours worked declining as that directly contradicts the alleged improvement in the employee numbers.
