Dramatic Convergence of U.S. and Eurozone Activity Extended in March

April 7, 2015

The purchasing manager survey differentials for both services and manufacturing between the United States and eurozone have converged in each of the past five months, causing the sum of the two spreads, shown in the right-most column below to plunge from +15.2 points last November to only +1.6 points in March.  This monthly feature on this website does not exactly compare oranges to oranges.  For the U.S., indices compiled by the Institute of Supply Management are used, but for Euroland the indices are ones produced by Markit Economics even though that shop also calculates a U.S. PMI.  There are two reasons for using the ISM index in the case of the U.S.:  1) the ISM data have a much longer history in backdata and 2) the ISM series has greater name recognition among investors who follow U.S. trends. 

Since November, the U.S. services and manufacturing PMI indices have dropped by 2.3 and 6.1 points.  The Ezone PMIs, in contrast, have risen by 3.1 and 2.1 points.

Between February and March, the U.S. non-manufacturing PMI fell by 0.4 points due primarily to a 1.9-point decline in production.  Euroland’s PMI in services went up 0.5 points last month, propelled by a 1.7-point jump in the German economy’s score.  The U.S. index was at a 3-month low in March, while the eurozone service PMI ascended to a 46-month high.

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
February 52.5 52.6 -0.1 54.3 53.2 +1.1 +1.0
March 53.7 52.1 +1.6 54.4 53.0 +1.4 +3.0
April 55.3 53.1 +2.2 55.3 53.4 +1.9 +4.1
May 56.1 53.2 +2.9 55.6 52.2 +3.4 +6.3
June 56.3 52.8 +3.5 55.7 51.8 +3.9 +7.4
July 57.9 54.2 +3.7 56.4 51.8 +4.6 +8.3
August 58.6 53.1 +5.5 58.1 50.7 +7.4 +12.9
Sept 58.1 52.4 +5.7 56.1 50.3 +5.8 +11.5
October 56.9 52.1 +4.8 57.9 50.6 +7.3 +12.1
November 58.8 51.1 +7.7 57.6 50.1 +7.5 +15.2
December 56.5 51.6 +4.9 55.1 50.6 +4.5 +9.4
Jan 2015 56.7 52.7 +4.0 53.5 51.0 +2.5 +6.5
February 56.9 53.7 +3.2 52.9 51.0 +1.9 +5.1
March 56.5 54.2 +2.3 51.5 52.2 -0.7 +1.6

Copyright 2015, Larry Greenberg.  All rights reserved.  No secondary distribution without express permission.

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