Well, no one saw that coming...

The New York Fed's Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January crashed from -14.5 to -43.7 - the worst print in the survey's history outside of the COVID lockdowns...

Source: Bloomberg

The -43.7 print was a stunning 10 standard deviations below expectations of a bounce to -5.0...

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, it was a bloodbath. New orders slumped more than 38 points to minus 49.4, the weakest since April 2020, while shipments dropped by the most since August. Worse still, the index of prices paid for materials increased to a three-month high.

But hope remains high as the six-month outlook for overall activity improved to a three-month high, suggesting manufacturing will stabilize at a weak level. The measure of the outlook for capital expenditures increased to the highest since April 2023, suggesting a pickup in investment.

However, the spread between current reality and a hopeful future is at near record highs (record Ex-COVID-lockdowns)...

"Bidenomics" for the win...