Tuesday, December 5, 2017

ISM Reports Show Broad Economic Strength: Latest Nowcasts are Strong

The latest ISM reports are out and both show broad strenght.  The new orders and production component of the manufacturing report were very strong (up +.6 to 64 and +2.9 to 63.9, respectively).  The anecdotal comments were very bullish:



The service sector numbers were also strong: production +.9 to 62.2.  New orders were off marginally: -.2 to 62.8.  The comments were a bit weaker:


They highlight several areas of concern: Obamacare uncertainty, a somewhat flat oil sector and hurriance issues still hurting some industries.

     Both of these indciate strong future GDP growth, which we also see in the latest Nowcasts from the Atlanta and NY Fed: