NEMA EBCI Indexes Stay Hot and Remain at Historically High Levels In February

NEMA said that at an aggregate level business confidence remained unchanged in February, hitting the same 72.2 mark in its Electroindustry Business Conditions Index (EBCI) as in January.

The EBCI Index is a monthly survey of senior executives at electrical manufacturers published by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), Rosslyn, Va. Any score over the 50-point level indicates a greater number of panelists see conditions improving than see them deteriorating.

NEMA said a sense of wait-and-see has crept into some of the comments, resulting in 11-point drops in the percentage of respondents reporting both better and worse conditions, along with a 22-point increase in the share of those who see current conditions as unchanged. Despite the internal churning, the current conditions index remains quite firmly in the expansionary range.

The future conditions index had reached stratospheric levels last month, nearly matching an all-time high with an aggregate score of 91.7. That number has come down by 13.9 points to 77.8 in February, which still reflects a robust level of confidence in conditions six months from now. The most significant shift in the underlying data comes from the 16-percentage-point decline, from 83% in January to 67 percent now, in those expecting conditions to be better. Only 11% of NEMA’s panelists now expect worse conditions.