Beige Book

The release of the Beige Book didn’t sway financial markets heavily on Wednesday. The Federal Reserve released the Beige Book today, a monthly report on the state of the economy.

Beige Book

The Beige Book is a collection of reports on various industries within different locations across the United States. The reports showed broadly that while manufacturing was improving and economic activity was rising in most areas, the real estate sector is still struggling. Both residential and commercial real estate have struggled this summer after tax breaks for buyers expired. In addition, both banking and labor sectors showed improvement in some, but not all areas.

This mix of sobering and somewhat positive news was not enough to push the market strongly in either direction. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down less than 1% as of Wednesday afternoon, as was the S&P 500. The Nasdaq Composite was down about 1% by the afternoon. Part of this slight downturn was attributed to other factors, such as yesterday’s Commerce Department report on the state of the manufacturing sector. The Commerce Department report showed that manufacturing growth was not increasing rapidly.