Further Shrinkage of U.S. Economic Advantage against Euroland
January 6, 2014
The U.S. service-sector purchasing manager index fell 0.9 points to 53.0, a 17-month low. Euroland’s comparable PMI slipped just 0.2 points, causing the differential between the two indices to drop to only 2.0 points, down from 7.9 points in August. The sum of the non-manufacturing and manufacturing spreads, shown in the rightmost column below, was 6.3 points, about a half as wide as four months earlier.
The slower rate of improvement in the U.S. service sector mostly reflected the flow of new business, which contracted for the first time since July 2009. The new orders sub-index of 49.4 was 7.0 points lower than November’s reading.
In Euroland, the German services PMI fell by 2.2 points to 53.5, and the French index slid another 0.2 points further below the 50 no change threshold to 47.8. The Spanish and Irish indices jumped by 2.7 and 4.7 points, however, to 54.2 and 61.8, respectively.
PMIs | U.S. | Ezone | U.S. | Ezone | Sum of | ||
Services | Services | Spread | Mf’g | Mf’g | Spread | Spreads | |
Jan 2012 | 56.8 | 50.4 | +6.4 | 54.1 | 48.8 | +5.3 | +10.9 |
Feb | 56.1 | 48.8 | +7.3 | 51.9 | 49.0 | +2.9 | +10.2 |
March | 55.0 | 49.2 | +5.8 | 53.3 | 47.7 | +5.6 | +11.4 |
April | 53.7 | 46.9 | +6.8 | 54.1 | 45.9 | +8.2 | +15.0 |
May | 54.1 | 46.7 | +7.4 | 52.5 | 45.1 | +7.4 | +14.8 |
June | 52.7 | 47.1 | +5.6 | 50.2 | 45.1 | +5.1 | +10.7 |
July | 52.9 | 47.9 | +5.0 | 50.5 | 44.0 | +6.5 | +11.5 |
August | 54.3 | 47.2 | +7.1 | 50.7 | 45.1 | +5.6 | +12.7 |
Sept | 55.2 | 46.1 | +9.1 | 51.6 | 46.1 | +5.5 | +14.6 |
October | 54.8 | 46.0 | +8.8 | 51.7 | 45.4 | +6.3 | +15.1 |
November | 54.8 | 46.7 | +8.1 | 49.9 | 46.2 | +3.7 | +11.8 |
December | 55.7 | 47.8 | +7.9 | 50.2 | 46.1 | +4.1 | +12.0 |
Jan 2013 | 55.2 | 48.6 | +6.6 | 53.1 | 47.9 | +5.2 | +11.8 |
February | 56.0 | 47.9 | +8.1 | 54.2 | 47.9 | +6.3 | +14.4 |
March | 54.4 | 46.4 | +8.0 | 51.3 | 46.8 | +4.5 | +12.5 |
April | 53.1 | 47.0 | +6.1 | 50.7 | 46.7 | +4.0 | +10.1 |
May | 53.7 | 47.2 | +6.5 | 49.0 | 48.3 | +0.7 | +7.2 |
June | 52.8 | 48.3 | +4.5 | 50.9 | 48.8 | +2.1 | +6.6 |
July | 56.0 | 49.8 | +6.2 | 55.4 | 50.3 | +5.1 | +11.2 |
August | 58.6 | 50.7 | +7.9 | 55.7 | 51.4 | +4.3 | +12.2 |
Sept | 54.4 | 52.2 | +2.2 | 56.2 | 51.1 | +5.1 | +7.3 |
October | 55.4 | 51.6 | +3.8 | 56.4 | 51.3 | +5.1 | +8.9 |
November | 53.9 | 51.2 | +2.7 | 57.3 | 51.6 | +5.7 | +8.4 |
December | 53.0 | 51.0 | +2.0 | 57.0 | 52.7 | +4.3 | +6.3 |
Copyright 2014, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.