The Philly Fed surged to the strongest since December 1993.
The 40.8 reading compared to 18.5 expected is an insanely strong number. The standard deviation from the forecast is 2.5 points; the highest estimate in the Bloomberg survey was 25.8.
New orders rose to the highest since 1988.
It’s a good number and the US economy is slowly strengthening but I suspect there is an element of fiction in this release.
The survey release doesn’t attempt to explain the surge but a separate survey question shows a pickup in hiring intentions, largely because of an expected increase in sales.