ISM Up In August

Today the Institute for Supply Management published its August Manufacturing Report. The latest headline PMI at 55.7 percent is an increase from 55.4 percent last month and is the best reading since June 2011, twenty-six months ago. Today's number beat the Investing.com forecast of 54.0 percent and Briefing.com's call for 54.5 percent.

Here's The Key Analysis From The Report
Manufacturing expanded in August as the PMI™ registered 55.7 percent, an increase of 0.3 percentage point when compared to July's reading of 55.4 percent. August's reading reflects the highest overall PMI™ reading in 2013. A reading above 50 percent indicates that the manufacturing economy is generally expanding; below 50 percent indicates that it is generally contracting.

A PMI™ in excess of 42.2 percent, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy. Therefore, the August PMI™ indicates growth for the 51st consecutive month in the overall economy, and indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector for the third consecutive month. Holcomb stated, "The past relationship between the PMI™ and the overall economy indicates that the average PMI™ for January through August (52.5 percent) corresponds to a 3.2 percent increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) on an annualized basis. In addition, if the PMI™ for August (55.7 percent) is annualized, it corresponds to a 4.2 percent increase in real GDP annually."

Here is the table of PMI components. I've highlighted a key point in advance of Friday's employment report. Manufacturing employment continued to grow in August but at a slower pace than in July.

I'm reluctant to put too much focus on this index for various reasons, but they are essentially captured in Briefing.com's Big Picture comment on this economic indicator.

This [the ISM Manufacturing Index] is a highly overrated index. It is merely a survey of purchasing managers. It is a diffusion index, which means that it reflects the number of people saying conditions are better compared to the number saying conditions are worse. It does not weight for size of the firm, or for the degree of better/worse. It can therefore underestimate conditions if there is a great deal of strength in a few firms. The data have thus not been either a good forecasting tool or a good read on current conditions during this business cycle. It must be recognized that the index is not hard data of any kind, but simply a survey that provides broad indications of trends.

The chart below shows the Manufacturing Composite series, which stretches back to 1948. I've highlighted the eleven recessions during this time frame and highlighted the index value the month before the recession starts.

For a diffusion index, the latest reading of 55.4 indicates weak expansion. What sort of correlation does that have with the months before the start of recessions? Here are the eleven data points for the months before recessions arranged in numeric order with the latest data pointed inserted in the sequence (highlighted in red).

42.1, 44.8, 45.7, 47.2, 47.8, 48.5, 49.2, 50.5, 50.7, 53.2, 55.7, 66.2

Today's reading is near the upper end of the range, with ten lower and one higher.

How revealing is today's 0.3 point change from last month? There are 788 monthly data points in this series. The average month-to-month point change is 2.01 points. So today's headline PMI number is statistically insignificant.

To reiterate the Briefing.com assessment: "The data have thus not been either a good forecasting tool or a good read on current conditions during this business cycle." The ISM reports nevertheless offer an interesting sidebar to the ongoing economic debate.