The index, which provides an early look at manufacturing conditions in April, increased from 17.5 in March to 21.7 in the current month. Moreover, new orders, which are a good proxy for future business conditions, shot up 17 points to 22.3. A reading above zero suggests production is expanding.
It’s safe to say that we still aren’t seeing much of an impact from the surge in gasoline prices, at least on a small portion of the economy.
Price pressures, however, have yet to abate, as both prices paid and prices received continued to accelerate.
Since the recovery began in June 2009, manufacturers have had little leeway in passing along higher prices, as the expansion has been anything but robust; however, as the second chart above shows, prices received has moved above zero, indicating the growing economy is allowing firms to shift some of the pricing burden to customers.
Separately, a look at today's release of the Consumer Price Index for March is available at Examiner.
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