Greatest Convergence of U.S. and Euroland Manufacturing Since January 2018
March 2, 2020
The U.S. ISM-compiled purchasing managers index dropped 0.8 points to a 7-month low of 50.1 in February. Such a level connotes stagnant growth in factory output and historically has been also consistent with real GDP growth of about 2.1%. The composition of the report was more concerning than the aggregated index. Imports, which affect GDP negatively, fell at the fastest pace since May 2009, which was one month before the last recessionary cycle ended. Counter-intuitively, imports affect growth in a negative way, so falling imports promote faster growth in GDP and factory output. Among other components of the February PMI, production and orders dropped by 4.0 and 2.2 points, supplier deliveries slowed at a significantly accelerated pace, and prices swung from a reading of 53.3 reading in January to a sub-50 score of 45.9 in February. Inventory levels became even more insufficient.
IHS also calculates a U.S. manufacturing purchasing manufacturing diffusion index. Such printed at a 6-month low of 50.7 after readings of 51.9 in January and 52.4 in the final month of 2019. Essentially, the IHS report tells a similar story to the more widely watched Institute of Supply Management survey discussed above.
The Euroland PMI compiled by IHS, in contrast rose 1.3 points from 47.9 in January to 49.2, a one-year high, in February. There, too, supply-chain disruptions related to lockdowns in covid-19-afflicted countries, intensified over the course of last month. Nonetheless, overall manufacturing conditions either improved or deteriorated less sharply in Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria and Germany.
The feature table below constructs a relative measure of the U.S. advantage or disadvantage in manufacturing compared to conditions in the euro area by subtracting the IHS PMI for Euroland from the ISM’s U.S. measure. The resulting spread narrowed from +3.0 in January (indicating America’s comfortable advantage) to a spread of +0.9 in February, which indicates a continuing advantage for the United States but also considerably more convergence between the two economies. February’s advantage is in fact the smallest in 25 months.
Movement in EUR/USD can influence the relative performance of manufacturing between the United States and Euroland to a great extent because of a lot of factory goods are manufactured for exports. One sees in the right-most column below that the dollar recorded its strongest average monthly value in February since April 2017, which all things else being the same implies reduced U.S. competitiveness of exports and import competing goods. The dollar last week and today weakened against the euro, hitting a low today of 1.1185 per euro representing a depreciation of 2.5% compared to last month average. If these softer levels hold or get extended, the PMI spread between the United States and Euroland could increase again.
| Mfg PMIs | U.S. | Euroland | Spread | EUR/USD |
| Jan 2013 | 53.1 | 47.9 | +5.2 | 1.330 |
| February | 53.1 | 47.9 | +5.2 | 1.334 |
| March | 51.5 | 46.8 | +4.7 | 1.295 |
| April | 50.0 | 46.7 | +3.3 | 1.301 |
| May | 50.0 | 48.3 | +1.7 | 1.299 |
| June | 52.5 | 48.8 | +3.7 | 1.319 |
| July | 54.9 | 50.3 | +4.6 | 1.309 |
| August | 56.3 | 51.4 | +4.9 | 1.331 |
| September | 56.0 | 51.1 | +4.9 | 1.335 |
| October | 56.6 | 51.3 | +5.3 | 1.364 |
| November | 57.0 | 51.6 | +5.4 | 1.349 |
| December | 56.5 | 52.7 | +3.8 | 1.370 |
| Jan 2014 | 51.3 | 54.0 | -2.7 | 1.361 |
| February | 54.3 | 53.2 | +1.1 | 1.366 |
| March | 54.4 | 53.0 | +1.4 | 1.380 |
| April | 55.3 | 53.4 | +1.9 | 1.380 |
| May | 55.6 | 52.2 | +3.4 | 1.374 |
| June | 55.7 | 51.8 | +3.9 | 1.360 |
| July | 56.4 | 51.8 | +4.6 | 1.354 |
| August | 58.1 | 50.7 | +7.4 | 1.332 |
| September | 56.1 | 50.3 | +5.8 | 1.290 |
| October | 57.9 | 50.6 | +7.3 | 1.268 |
| November | 57.6 | 50.1 | +7.5 | 1.247 |
| December | 55.1 | 50.6 | +4.5 | 1.232 |
| Jan 2015 | 53.5 | 51.0 | +2.5 | 1.162 |
| February | 53.3 | 51.0 | +2.3 | 1.135 |
| March | 52.3 | 52.2 | +0.1 | 1.083 |
| April | 51.6 | 52.0 | -0.4 | 1.081 |
| May | 53.1 | 52.2 | +0.9 | 1.116 |
| June | 53.1 | 52.5 | +0.6 | 1.123 |
| July | 51.9 | 52.4 | -0.5 | 1.101 |
| August
September October |
51.0
50.0 49.4 |
52.3
52.0 52.3 |
-1.3
-2.0 -2.9 |
1.114
1.123 1.121 |
| November
December Jan 2016 February March April May June July August September October November December Jan 2017 February March April May June July August September October November December Jan 2018 February March April May June July August September October November December Jan 2019 February March April May June July August September October November December January February |
48.4
48.0 48.2 49.7 51.7 50.7 51.0 52.8 52.8 49.4 51.7 52.0 53.5 54.5 56.0 57.6 56.8 55.3 55.5 56.7 56.5 59.3 60.2 58.5 58.2 59.3 59.1 60.7 59.3 57.9 58.7 60.0 58.4 60.8 59.5 57.5 58.8 54.3 56.6 54.2 55.3 52.8 52.1 51.7 51.2 49.1 47.8 48.3 48.1 47.4 50.9 50.1
|
52.8
53.2 52.3 51.2 51.6 51.7 51.5 52.8 52.0 51.7 52.6 53.5 53.7 54.9 55.2 55.4 56.2 56.7 57.0 57.4 56.6 57.4 58.1 58.5 60.1 60.6 59.6 58.6 56.6 56.2 55.5 54.9 55.1 54.6 53.2 52.0 51.8 51.4 50.5 49.3 47.5 47.9 47.7 47.6 46.5 47.0 45.7 45.9 46.9 46.3 47.9 49.2
|
-4.4
-4.8 -4.1 -1.5 +0.1 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 +0.8 -2.3 -0.9 -1.5 -0.2 -0.4 +0.8 +2.2 +0.6 -1.4 -1.5 -0.7 -0.1 +1.9 +2.1 0.0 -1.9 -1.3 -0.5 +2.1 +2.7 +1.7 +3.2 +5.1 +3.3 +6.2 +6.3 +5.5 +7.0 +2.9 +6.1 +4.9 +7.8 +4.9 +4.4 +4.1 +4.7 +2.1 +2.1 +2.4 +1.2 +1.1 +3.0 +0.9 |
1.076
1.090 1.087 1.111 1.114 1.134 1.130 1.124 1.106 1.120 1.121 1.103 1.078 1.054 1.063 1.064 1.069 1.072 1.106 1.124 1.153 1.182 1.191 1.176 1.174 1.184 1.220 1.234 1.234 1.227 1.181 1.167 1.169 1.155 1.166 1.148 1.136 1.138 1.142 1.135 1.130 1.123 1.118 1.130 1.121 1.112 1.101 1.106 1.105 1.111 1.110 1.091 |
Copyright 2020, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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