Mubasher: The Philadelphia Federal Reserve on Thursday said that its gauge on the US Mid-Atlantic business activity revealed a further slowdown in the pace of expansion in October.

The regional Fed bank’s barometer dropped by six points to 5.6 in October, having dropped five points to 12 in September.

It is worth noting that any reading above zero reflects that the region’s business activity is growing.

A closer look at the index will show divergence in the sub-indices during October.

The current shipments sub-index dropped by 8 points to 18.9 points, whereas new orders gauge rose by 1 point to 26.2.

Both unfilled orders and delivery times indices also remained positive during the month.

The measure on six-month business outlook recovered during October having sharply dropped in the preceding month.

By 12:37 pm GMT, the US dollar index, which gauges the greenback against six major rivals, fell by 0.22% to 97.7850.