US DATA: Oct MNI Chicago Report shows Chicago Business Barometer up
just 0.2 at a still contractionary 49.9. Overall, report shows sideways,
sluggish activity with the majority of Business Activity measures
rotating around neutral. Production dropped 3.6 to 51.8 and the pace of
expansion for Employment slowed 1.7 to a neutral 50.3, its lowest since
Dec 2009. After three straight months of gains, inflation slowed a bit
as Prices Paid slipped 3.9 points to 59.3. Lead times for Supplier
Deliveries fell 1.7 to a neutral 50.4. New Orders pulled out of
contraction with a 3.2 point gain to 50.6 while Order Backlogs rose 2.7
to 44.3. Inventories down 1.5 and barely in contraction at 49.6, but its
move to neutral struck a balance with the rather neutral tone of the
report. Lead times for Capital Equipment fell 6.2 days to 103.7, a 26-mo
low and Production Materiel was down 2.9 days to 37.2. Volatile MRO
Supplies inexplicably jumped 4.5 days to 13.9 days, a 5 month high.