A guest post by AAM intern Whitney Stack:

New York manufacturing activity grew this month, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, but at a rate slower than predicted. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Empire State Manufacturing Survey released last Monday shows that the state's business conditions index rose from 5.08 in July to 7.10 in August. However, the increase was notably weaker than anticipated. "Economists had expected a reading of 8.5 in August," wrote Journal reporter, Kathleen Madigan. Economists and investors alike were disappointed by New York manufacturing's creeping numbers, which contributed to stocks plunging on the same day that the report was released. "The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 55 points in early trading as investors flocked to safer havens," Kristina Peterson wrote in another Journal article published yesterday. ##