By no means are any of these PMI numbers terrible. In the vacuum of mainstream Economics' ceteris paribus fantasy, these might all be mildly pleasing. There is no such thing, however, and despite where they now are these are verging closer to comparisons which could be, several already have been, concerning. As such, the direction and trend being established as [...]
The term “geopolitics” has a specific meaning, though in the context of assessing markets and their equally ubiquitous though purposefully non-specific “jitters”, it’s basically a catch-all, too. Should the stock market, in particular, take a bad step, reflexive commentary is quick to call up geopolitics. Such was absolutely the case late in January 2018 into the following month of February. [...]
It’s not really a war so much as somewhat of a disagreement. And it’s not an unfamiliar one, as time and again these things tend to come down to timing. The global economy remains synchronized, only certain parts of it go ahead first before others then the rest end up joining. Carried into the realm of PMI’s, diverges in sentiment [...]
Silver linings have been hard to come by lately, especially last year. Twenty-twenty was a total washout in almost every way imaginable; and that’s an understatement. Still, there were some small signs of genuine progress such as Jay Powell’s thorough contribution to QE debunking. Bank reserves went sky high while practically nothing else did (other than equities), certainly not inflation. [...]
The bid for “decoupling” has never been stronger, and, unfortunately, this time actually represents the weakest case yet for it. According to the mainstream interpretations of the most recent sentiment indicators, the US and European economies appear to be going in the complete opposite directions.Beset by even more overreactive governments, spurred oppressively forward by an increase in COVID testing, in [...]
It’s just not fast enough. And with the labor market spitting out numbers across a broad economic cross-section that look increasingly tired suggesting an economy running out of momentum, there’s the added urgency of time. Late summer figures still aren’t close to where they need to be even though when you view them in isolation they can look tremendous.Start with [...]
There’s already doubt given how the two major series supposedly measuring the same thing seemingly can’t agree. If the rebound was truly robust, it would show up unambiguously everywhere. But IHS Markit’s purchasing managers indices struggled to get back above 50 in July, barely getting there, suggesting the economy might be slowing or even stalling way too close to the [...]
Jay Powell’s 2018 case for his economic “boom”, the one which was presumably behind his hawkish aggression, rested largely upon the unemployment rate alone. A curiously thin roster for a period of purported economic acceleration, one of the few sets joining that particular headline statistic in its optimism resides in the lower tiers of all statistics. The sentiment contained within [...]
Take your pick, apparently. On the one hand, IHS Markit confirmed its flash estimate for the US economy during February. Late last month the group had reported a sobering guess for current conditions. According to its surveys of both manufacturers and service sector companies, the system stumbled badly last month, the composite PMI tumbling to 49.6 from 53.3 in January. [...]
IHS Markit’s Composite US PMI rose to a 10-month high in January 2020. According to its flash estimate, the index was up to 53.1 from 52.7 in the final reading for December 2019. Driven by a rebound in the services component, the composite combines both the manufacturing and service PMI’s into a single number, Markit’s view is that the US [...]
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