A closely watched survey of business activity in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region showed evidence of some slowing in the country's economic expansion on Thursday, but an index used to gauge future growth gave more hopeful signals. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's business activity index came in at 13.2 for January, marking the 20th consecutive month factories in the highly industrialized region of the United States expanded output. But the index was down from 25.4 in December, indicating that the pace of activity slowed considerably from the prior month. The January reading also was the lowest in 18 months, and far lower than the 26.4 median forecast by economists. In another report released on Thursday, the Conference Board, a private think tank, said its leading indicators index rose in December for the second straight month after five consecutive declines. The index rose 0.2 percent to 115.4, a bigger increase than the 0.1 percent forecast by economists. Alan Ruskin, research director at 4Cast in New York, said the day's data gave a hint that U.S. economic growth may not be a strong as people had hoped. "On the growth side, the Philly Fed number certainly seemed soft," said Ruskin. "I am encouraged by some improvement in the leading indicators. But that needs to be watched closely because we haven't felt the full effects of the prior five months of declines. "We just might have kicked off the year on the soft side," he added. Almost all of the subindexes within the Philadelphia Fed index fell. Among the exceptions were employment, which showed a small rise to 17.00 from 14.00, and prices paid, an inflation indicator. It rose to 66.1 from 53.8. --more 2357 Local Time 2057 GMT
