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Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders
THE MANUFACTURERS’ SHIPMENTS, Inventories, and Orders (M3) survey is one of the most respected economic indicators on Wall Street. Published monthly by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau, the report measures current activity and future commitments in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Using data supplied by some forty-seven hundred reporting units of businesses in eighty-nine industry categories, it provides statistics on the value of factories’ shipments, new orders, unfilled orders, and inventories. The survey is closely followed by economists, members of the business community, and various government organizations, including the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which employs the ...