Dallas Fed June production index -15.1 vs -19.4 before | Forexlive

Details:

• General business activity -15.1 vs -19.4 para
• Company outlook -6.9 vs -13.4 previously
• Prices paid +21.5 vs +20.4 previously
• New orders -1.3 vs -2.2 before
• Deliveries +2.8 vs -3.0 previously
• Employment -2.9 vs -5.3 money

The price numbers were all marked higher.

The comments in the report are much more negative than the numbers in the report.

Food production

• We have been fortunate to be on the receiving end of some of our competition’s failures/challenges.
• Markets are stabilizing, raw material costs have stopped rising (seasonally) and demand for our products feels strong.
• We just added two new retail customers. It’s mixed news – it’s always good to have growth, but we’re having trouble maintaining our production line. We had 25 percent turnover this year.

Paper production

• We are really neutral at this point in our outlook.

Printing and similar support activities

• We are starting to see things slow down, and while many in our industry continue to be slow, we are quite busy. We had hooray billing in both April and May, so I’m sure June will be less so. It’s hard to understand why we’ve been so busy when so many aren’t. Maybe it’s just luck of the draw with our customers needing us more than their customers need them?

The main production of metals

• Our overall building and construction sales continue to decline for most of our customers. Declining housing starts, rising mortgage rates and overall housing costs are hampering this market. Our shipping market is also off. Trailer orders are down, resulting in fewer being built.
• Legacy work has declined over the past 1.5 years and has not changed. Looking forward, we will add product offerings not previously offered to strengthen the business.

Manufacture of fabricated metal products

• We are continuing to align production capacity with the lower volumes forecast for 2024.
• We have a good backlog, but owners have slowed down their project approvals and start dates for projects we have purchase orders for.

Production of machines

• Summer is coming! Orders are hard to come by, there have been layoffs and the future really doesn’t look that encouraging at the moment. Our sales team is turning over every stone, our “creative” team is looking for lots of new ideas, and our operations team is squeezing every penny they can.
• We saw a small surge of inbound work from long-time repeat customers, but overall it’s still a very volatile business environment. We would like to hire, but cannot: a) guarantee long-term employment and b) find qualified help.
• Business is slowing down.
• Business remains sluggish at best. We see no signs of improvement and anticipate no major changes in economic activity ahead of the election.

Production of computers and electronic products

• We are seeing the last expected cyclical formation. Markets are still asynchronous.
• High interest rates are still playing a large role in the industrial capital equipment industry.

Production of transport equipment

• While we still have a very large production backlog that is allowing us to continue to increase production and capacity utilization, our new order volume has slowed significantly, causing us to reevaluate long-term plans.

Manufacture of furniture and similar products

• [Labor shortages in] trades skilled in manufacturing, installation and CNC [computer numerical controlled equipment]
  operators continue to be the biggest drag on our growth.

Various productions

• I think the election and fear of world conflict is scaring buyers away from ordering non-essential materials.