{"id":429070,"date":"2026-03-30T21:40:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/march-dallas-fed-manufacturing-index-0-2-vs-0-2-prior\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:40:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:40:05","slug":"march-dallas-fed-manufacturing-index-0-2-vs-0-2-prior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/march-dallas-fed-manufacturing-index-0-2-vs-0-2-prior-429070\/","title":{"rendered":"March Dallas Fed manufacturing index +0.2 vs -0.2 prior"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prior was +0.2<\/li>\n<li>New orders +6.1 vs +11.8 prior<\/li>\n<li>Prices paid 32.7 vs 31.7 prior<\/li>\n<li>Employment -1.0 vs +7.5 prior<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The surging energy market is undoubtedly a boom for Texas, even with the associated inflation headwinds. However it&#8217;s going to be tough to pull the trigger on fresh drilling unless executives feel that the war will continue.<\/p>\n<p>The comments in the report might be more representative of how higher energy is hitting the broader economy:<\/p>\n<p class=\"h6\">Beverage  and tobacco product manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We have seen decreases in some of our  costs, in<br \/>\nparticular agricultural raw materials. We have seen increases in the<br \/>\ncosts of our packaging materials, some of this related to increase in<br \/>\nenergy  costs. We expect the Iran war to cause increases in energy costs<br \/>\n for a period  extending at least six months and potentially longer.<br \/>\nThis has increased our  uncertainty for the rest of the year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Chemical  manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Iran war and bottleneck in the  Strait of Hormuz has<br \/>\ncaused significant supply chain disruption from China,  allowing the<br \/>\nU.S. chemicals sector to benefit from the supply bottleneck. We  believe<br \/>\n this to be short-lived and the situation to return to the lower demand<br \/>\n levels in the latter half of 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Computer  and electronic product manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I am thinking about recommending to our board to close the  company.<\/li>\n<li>We have seen no impact yet from higher  fuel prices.<br \/>\nHowever, we expect to see this very soon, as our vendors will  increase<br \/>\nraw materials prices to include the increased cost for transportation.<\/li>\n<li>We would like to see lower interest  rates throughout this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Food  manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Continuing confusion at the federal  level, illiquid<br \/>\nconsumer base and falling federal government spending are not  helping<br \/>\nthe food industry.<\/li>\n<li>High density Hispanic channels are  down. Costs are up,<br \/>\nand freight is increasing fast. Tariff chaos has wreaked havoc  with all<br \/>\n of our export customers and seasoning suppliers. <\/li>\n<li>We are worried about costs increasing  due to fuel price<br \/>\nincreases. We are worried about a slowdown in the economy due  to<br \/>\ngeopolitics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Furniture  and related product manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Iran war and impact on energy  prices are concerns as<br \/>\nconsumers have to deal with the rapid increase in energy  cost.<br \/>\nHopefully it will moderate as the conflict curtails. That said, the more<br \/>\n  demoralizing impact of the constant circus out of Washington and<br \/>\ninability to fund critical infrastructure like TSA is killing the animal<br \/>\n  spirits of our economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Machinery  manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We are beating our competition due to  the continued<br \/>\nvertical integration plans that we are focused on implementing  and<br \/>\nimproving. This requires a great deal of planning and money, but the<br \/>\npayout  is very sound.<\/li>\n<li>Spring has sprung. It\u2019s truly like the  balm of Gilead.<br \/>\nAfter an extended period of ailment and woe, the healing has occurred<br \/>\nand we  are on our way to greater things.  Our  business growth thus far<br \/>\n in 2026 is like a sweet fragrance that is healing our  loss and<br \/>\nhardship from prior years. <\/li>\n<li>We are still seeing strong business activity with our  backlog increasing.<\/li>\n<li>Our company is seeing an increase in  activity totally<br \/>\nunrelated to the current geopolitical conditions. The effect  of<br \/>\nuncertainty delayed the start of a new manufacturing project in the U.S.<br \/>\n  (tariffs, capital expenditures) in 2025. Project 2025 is underway with<br \/>\n a  six-month delay and scaled back to accommodate a less ambitious<br \/>\npicture for  2026. We are still recovering from 2025 plus a more<br \/>\nconservative outlook for  2026. Things are trending upward in our field<br \/>\nbut at a much slower pace.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Miscellaneous  manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Many external factors contributing to  an unstable market.<\/li>\n<li>If we could get our tariff  reimbursement back, that would<br \/>\n put us in a position to invest in growth.  Without it, though, we don&#8217;t<br \/>\n have the capital to invest in growth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Nonmetallic  mineral product manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We are waiting for home building  activity to pick up, which is dependent upon interest rates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Paper  manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Overall business still slow. Have  achieved limited price<br \/>\nreductions in some raw materials that are in an oversupply  condition<br \/>\nbut not enough to keep up with the decline in selling prices of our<br \/>\nproducts. We still see upward pressure on labor and benefits cost.<br \/>\nMargins are  reduced from 12 months ago.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Plastics  and rubber products manufacturing<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Importing from China is precarious. The  costs of product<br \/>\nand freight are higher and slower. Suppliers are apprehensive.  Their<br \/>\ncosts are increasing, especially a certain raw material plastic impacted<br \/>\n  by petrochemicals affected by cost of oil.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"h6\">Printing  and related support activities<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We have been stupid slow recently,  slower than we can<br \/>\nrecall in many years. We continue to believe it\u2019s from the  chaos and<br \/>\nconfusion coming out of Washington. In addition, now with the Iran war,<br \/>\n prices are going to shoot up due to shipping costs, and tariffs are<br \/>\nstill in  effect. So, there is no telling when business will start to<br \/>\nimprove. We have  some nice work coming in soon, but it&#8217;s work we knew<br \/>\nwas coming.  We are seeing some improvement in our  estimating backlog,<br \/>\nwhich is a good sign of better days to come. The war is  causing a<br \/>\ndisruption of raw materials prices as we are producing plastic-based<br \/>\nproducts, virtually all of our raw materials are hydrocarbon based.<br \/>\nFifteen percent  increases are normal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>                            This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior was +0.2 New orders +6.1 vs +11.8 prior Prices paid 32.7 vs 31.7 prior Employment -1.0 vs +7.5 prior The surging energy market is undoubtedly a boom for Texas, even with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}