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EndGame Macro
The Industrial Slowdown Was Phase One. Phase Two Depends on the Consumer
What you’re looking at is the combined pulse of the manufacturing economy. Each line represents a different Fed district asking local factories a simple question: “Are things getting better or worse?” Above zero means improvement, below zero means contraction. When you average all the regions together, you get a pretty reliable sense of the national trend.
The story is clear. Early 2021 through mid-2022 was the overheated, post COVID surge…reopening demand, stimulus, supply chain chaos. Then things cooled hard. Higher rates hit, inventories got worked down, global demand softened. Manufacturing slipped below zero and stayed there, almost two full years of quiet contraction. Not a crash just a long, grinding slowdown.
Now, in mid 2025, everything is clustering around the flat line. It’s not booming, but it isn’t sliding further either. It’s the look of a sector that’s done most of its bleeding and is trying to find a floor.
Where We Are Now And What Happens If the Broader Economy Rolls Over
If the rest of the economy were still healthy, you’d probably say manufacturing is bottoming out. It already went through its own private recession, and historically this kind of stability around zero is the phase before a slow, uneven recovery.
But if you assume the broader economy finally softens and consumer spending slows, services stop carrying the load, credit gets tight this chart reads very differently.
Instead of manufacturing is stabilizing, it becomes manufacturing has already taken its hit… and now the rest of the economy is catching down. In that scenario, these surveys don’t drift from negative to positive, they turn back down with a second leg, this time reinforced by layoffs, weaker orders, and a pullback in investment across multiple sectors, not just factories.
That’s how a long, contained industrial slump turns into a full cycle downturn: the part of the economy that held everything up finally runs out of momentum. Manufacturing doesn’t cause the recession, it simply stops hiding the one that’s been building underneath.
So the question the chart is really asking isn’t whether factories are improving.
It’s whether the rest of the economy gives them room to recover… or pulls them back under on the way down.
tweet
The Industrial Slowdown Was Phase One. Phase Two Depends on the Consumer
What you’re looking at is the combined pulse of the manufacturing economy. Each line represents a different Fed district asking local factories a simple question: “Are things getting better or worse?” Above zero means improvement, below zero means contraction. When you average all the regions together, you get a pretty reliable sense of the national trend.
The story is clear. Early 2021 through mid-2022 was the overheated, post COVID surge…reopening demand, stimulus, supply chain chaos. Then things cooled hard. Higher rates hit, inventories got worked down, global demand softened. Manufacturing slipped below zero and stayed there, almost two full years of quiet contraction. Not a crash just a long, grinding slowdown.
Now, in mid 2025, everything is clustering around the flat line. It’s not booming, but it isn’t sliding further either. It’s the look of a sector that’s done most of its bleeding and is trying to find a floor.
Where We Are Now And What Happens If the Broader Economy Rolls Over
If the rest of the economy were still healthy, you’d probably say manufacturing is bottoming out. It already went through its own private recession, and historically this kind of stability around zero is the phase before a slow, uneven recovery.
But if you assume the broader economy finally softens and consumer spending slows, services stop carrying the load, credit gets tight this chart reads very differently.
Instead of manufacturing is stabilizing, it becomes manufacturing has already taken its hit… and now the rest of the economy is catching down. In that scenario, these surveys don’t drift from negative to positive, they turn back down with a second leg, this time reinforced by layoffs, weaker orders, and a pullback in investment across multiple sectors, not just factories.
That’s how a long, contained industrial slump turns into a full cycle downturn: the part of the economy that held everything up finally runs out of momentum. Manufacturing doesn’t cause the recession, it simply stops hiding the one that’s been building underneath.
So the question the chart is really asking isn’t whether factories are improving.
It’s whether the rest of the economy gives them room to recover… or pulls them back under on the way down.
Manufacturing started contracting around mid-'22 and has been in the doldrums ever since: https://t.co/LfSH9F5uDP tweet