Economics U.S. Manufacturing Gauge Contracts for First Time in Three Years
By Reade Pickert
September 3, 2019, 10:00 AM EDT Updated on September 3, 2019, 1:52 PM EDT
A key U.S. factory gauge unexpectedly contracted for the first time since 2016, sending stocks and bond yields lower and boosting expectations for interest-rate cuts as global manufacturing woes deepen.
The Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers index fell to 49.1 in August, weaker than all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists, data released Tuesday showed. Figures below 50 indicate the manufacturing economy is generally shrinking. The group’s gauge of new orders dropped to a more than seven-year low, while the production index hit the lowest since late 2015.
The data add to concern a broader U.S. recession is coming and may complicate the re-election chances of President Donald Trump, whose pledges to revive manufacturing have been a signature issue. At the same time, Trump’s escalating tariffs on imports from China have been a major reason behind factory weakness that threatens to spread to consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the world’s largest economy.
In the U.S. stock market, the ISM numbers torpedoed a morning rebound and left the S&P 500 poised for its worst loss in seven sessions, down as much as 1.2% to erase almost half of last week’s rally. The 10-year Treasury yield and the dollar fell.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-03/u-s-manufacturing-contracts-for-first-time-in-three-years
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A separate factory PMI from IHS Markit came in at 50.3 on Tuesday, showing manufacturing was barely expanding. Economists and investors tend to more closely follow the ISM report, which dates to 1931.
The “shock effect” of the latest ISM report “adds to recession fears, and the components were also pretty weak,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, in an interview. “This does confirm that we’re not bottoming out yet in manufacturing in this country, and that’s significant.”
