– by New Deal democrat If Monday’s ISM manufacturing report was good (but with a dose of inflation), today’s ISM services report for February was even better (but also with a dose of inflation). Together they negative the likelihood of an economic downturn in the next several months (geopolitical idiocy aside).  Let’s take a look. […]

– by New Deal democrat With the shutdown of the official government sources, along with the regional Fed indexes, the ISM manufacturing and services indexes have become especially important. To recap, because of manufacturing’s diminished importance to the general economy, the services index has become significantly more important. For forecasting purposes, I assign a 75% weight […]

Economically weighted ISM indexes for December forecast continued expansion  – by New Deal democrat We got two significant economic releases this morning. First, let’s take a look at the ISM services index. I’ll examine the November JOLTS report separately. Recall that services are about 75% of the economy. Thus, even if goods production is contracting, […]

 – by New Deal democrat Recently I have paid much more attention to the ISM services index. That’s because, since the turn of the Millennium, manufacturing’s share of the economy has contracted to the point where even a significant decline in that index has not translated into an economy-wide recession, as for example in 2015-16.  When we […]