Philly Fed: Manufacturing conditions in the region continued to advance in August

"Manufacturing conditions in the region continued to advance in August, according to firms responding to this month’s Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey," the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said on Thursday.

Key highlights:

• The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, fell slightly from 19.5 in July to 18.9 in August
• The index has been positive for 13 consecutive months
• Despite the fallback in the general activity index, the demand for manufactured goods, as measured by the survey’s current new orders index, showed notable improvement
• The current shipments index increased 17 points to 29.4
• he employment index held near steady at 10.1