Manufacturing activity grew more modestly in the Tenth Federal Reserve District in April, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City announced on Thursday.
“Regional factory growth in April was a bit weaker than in March, but similar to previous months,” said Chad Wilkerson, vice president at the Kansas City Fed. “About a third of firms noted that flooding and extreme weather had negatively affected their activity in recent months.”
Price indexes showed little change with some slight upticks in month-over-month selling prices and future raw materials prices.
The Fed said expectations for future activity eased slightly but remained mostly solid.
The month-over-month composite index fell to 5 in April from 10 in March; the index however was higher than 1 in February. The composite index is an average of the production, new orders, employment, supplier delivery time, and raw materials inventory indexes.
Growth eased slightly in factory production of both durable and nondurable goods, particularly food, machinery, electronic, and chemical products, the Kansas City Fed said.
Most month-over-month indexes slowed in April but remained positive, with production, shipments, order backlog, and employment all decreasing. In contrast, the new orders index edged higher from 4 to 10.
Most year-over-year factory indexes fell in April, and the composite index eased from 27 to 22. The future composite index also moved lower from 22 to 11, as most future factory activity indexes eased somewhat, the Kansas City Fed said.
The Tenth Federal Reserve District consists of the western part of Missouri and all of Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wyoming and the northern half of New Mexico.
