US Manufacturing Sector Weakens Further – Alea Iacta Est?
On the first trading day of the year, China’s stock market crumbled, seemingly waylaid by yet another weak manufacturing PMI report and a further slide in the yuan. On the same day, a few Fed members came out affirming that several more rate hikes would be seen in the US this year (such as SF Fed president Williams and Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester).
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Meanwhile here is the latest update of the Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now indicator:
The GDP Now model declines to just 0.7%, once again way below the consensus range
When we last mentioned this indicator in passing, it still stood at 1.7% – and that was on December 18! Not long after that, we posted a year-end overview of US manufacturing data with updated charts from our friend Michael Pollaro. This was on December 23, but in the meantime a wealth of additional data has been released, primarily in the form of district surveys and finally the manufacturing ISM release on January 4.
Michael has provided us with a fresh set of charts, showing the evolution of the most important data points of the district surveys as an average and comparing them to the respective National ISM data. In previous updates on manufacturing data, we have mentioned that we see little reason why the trends that have been in motion since early 2015 should reverse. And indeed, they haven’t – on the contrary, they seem to be accelerating.
The most upsetting releases of late have been the Chicago ISM (which contains services as well) and the national ISM released on January 4. Both came in way below already subdued expectations, with the Chicago number falling totally out of bed, posting a headline reading of just 42.9 – well in contraction territory.
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