Because of the tragedy in Japan, all the economic data we now see should be viewed as old news in that it hasn’t captured what impact the global economy will now see. With this said, we can at least see the state of the US economy beforehand and thus its ability to handle external events. The Mar NY manufacturing survey, the 1st Mar industrial # out, was 17.5, better than expectations of 16.1 and up from 15.4 in Feb. It’s the best level since June but the components were mixed. New Orders fell in half to a 3 month low but Backlogs went positive for the 1st time since Mar ’10. Employment rose almost 6 pts and the average workweek was up 9 pts to the highest since Oct ’09. Inventories fell almost 6 pts. With this, inflation pressures continued to rise with Prices Paid up by 8 pts to the most since Aug ’08. Prices Received rose 4 pts to the highest since Oct ’08.
