Service-Sector U.S.-Minus-Ezone PMI Spread Remained Small in January
February 5, 2014
For a sixth straight month, service sector activity expanded in both the United States and euro area, and the pace of expansion accelerated in each case last month. That’s the message from their respective purchasing manager indices released today. The U.S. index increased a whole point to 54.0, a two-month high, and embodied advances of 2.0 points in sales, 2.4 points in prices, 0.8 points in jobs and a half point in new business. Euroland’s index rose 0.6 to 51.6, a 31-month high. Increases in the services PMI readings for France of 1.6 points, Italy of 1.5 points, and Spain of 0.7 points outweighed dips of 0.4 points in the German index and 0.3 points in Ireland’s. The service-sector spread of 2.4 points gave the advantage to the United States, but recall that a manufacturing PMI differential of -2.7 points favored the euro area. The algebraic sum of those spreads was a mere 0.3 edge for Euroland, but a weighted average would still favor the United States because services represent a bigger share of GDP than manufacturing. America’s winter of horrendously harsh weather in the eastern two-thirds of the country is clearly hurting. Hopefully, this self-limiting factor will fade before worsened confidence sets in.
| 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 | 54.8 | 47.9 | +8.1 | 53.1 | 47.9 | +5.2 | +13.3 |
| March | 54.5 | 46.4 | +8.1 | 51.5 | 46.8 | +4.7 | +12.8 |
| April | 53.8 | 47.0 | +6.8 | 50.0 | 46.7 | +3.3 | +10.1 |
| May | 54.0 | 47.2 | +6.8 | 50.0 | 48.3 | +1.7 | +8.5 |
| June | 53.4 | 48.3 | +5.1 | 52.5 | 48.8 | +3.7 | +8.8 |
| July | 55.9 | 49.8 | +6.1 | 54.9 | 50.3 | +4.6 | +10.7 |
| August | 57.9 | 50.7 | +7.2 | 56.3 | 51.4 | +4.9 | +12.1 |
| Sept | 54.5 | 52.2 | +2.3 | 56.0 | 51.1 | +4.9 | +7.2 |
| October | 55.1 | 51.6 | +3.5 | 56.6 | 51.3 | +5.3 | +8.8 |
| November | 54.1 | 51.2 | +2.9 | 57.0 | 51.6 | +5.4 | +8.3 |
| December | 53.0 | 51.0 | +2.0 | 56.5 | 52.7 | +3.8 | +5.8 |
| Jan 2014 | 54.0 | 51.6 | +2.4 | 51.3 | 54.0 | -2.7 | -0.3 |
Copyright 2014, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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