'Hope' Hammered As Empire Fed Plunged In April - Below All Estimates

New York state factory activity contracted in April for a fifth straight month, printing at -14.3 (dramatically below the -5.2 print expected)...

Source: Bloomberg

...that was below all analysts' estimates...

Source: Bloomberg

...but even more problematically, prices paid (and received) surged to their highest in a year (and it appears that all those illegal immigrants in New York are not getting jobs in the manufacturing sector). Labor market conditions remained weak with employment and hours worked moving lower...

New orders and shipments both declined significantly, and unfilled orders continued to shrink. Delivery times shortened, and inventories edged higher.

Not a pretty picture...

“Manufacturing activity continued to contract in New York State in April, and employment continued to decline. Optimism about the outlook for future business conditions remained subdued.”

~Richard Deitz, Economic Research Advisor at the New York Fed

All of which just confirms the current theme in macro data  - 'soft' survey data has collapsed relative to the 'inflated' 'hard' data...

Source: Bloomberg

...which means 'hope' - the spread between hard and soft data - is plummeting back toward cycle lows since Biden was elected.