Web Trader MT5
Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index is an index of business conditions among manufacturers in Texas, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas as a monthly survey-based index. Respondents – production managers/executives at manufacturing firms with headquarters in Texas – are asked whether the situation has improved, deteriorated, or remained unchanged in a range of measures, including output, new orders, employment, prices paid, and general business activity.
The outcome will be diffusion indices: the positive index indicates that more firms reported improvement than deterioration, and vice versa.
Texas is the largest energy-producing state in the US. As a consequence, the Dallas Fed index is especially sensitive to conditions in the oil and gas sectors, which imparts a slightly different flavor to the index compared with national manufacturing surveys.
It is published on the final Monday of every month and is viewed as a regional early read on US industrial conditions.
Example: When oil prices fell in 2015 and 2016, the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index fell sharply negative long before the rest of the national manufacturing indices began to show the same stress.
This is a reminder that regional indices can serve as early warning signals, especially where the local economy has had concentrated exposure to one sector.
