My Investing Muse

  Institute of Supply Management released the Manufacturing PMI last week. From the article, it was quoted: Economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in September for the 11th consecutive month following a 28-month period of growth, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM ® Report On Business ® . Of the six biggest manufacturing industries, two — Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; and Petroleum & Coal Products — registered growth in September. The five manufacturing industries that reported growth in September are: Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Textile Mills; Primary Metals; and Petroleum & Coal Products. The 11 industries reporting contraction in September — in the following order — are: Printing & Related Support Activities; Furniture & Related Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; Paper Products; Fabricated Metal Products; Wood Products; Computer & Electronic Products;...

Supply Chain is well said to be the blood of the economy.  To bring goods and services to the customers, this has to go through some supply chain services. For this to be appreciated, let us look at the import, export and balance of trade (export less import) for the USA. For June 2023, exports total $247.483B For June 2023, total import is $312.98B thus, the balance of trade for the month ending June 2023 stands at -$65.497B (negative). This implies that the value of imports is more than the value of exports. For Aug 2023, the PMI are 51.00, 47.00 and 50.40 for services, manufacturing and composite respectively. Composite PMI refers to the combination of both services and manufacturing PMI. This implies that the manufacturing sector is contracting whereas the services sector expands. From the LMI index and its detailed explanation, there is no "urgency" to hire for the coming peak season. This could imply either there are sufficient resources, a lack of demand or both . The ...

The war in Ukraine has dragged into this week.   This will be hogging the headlines till resolution.  For now, let us continue to have hope that this will be resolved soon with minimal loss of lives, livelihood and property. While the conflict persisted into the 5th day, let us not forget the various economic updates that may swing the market too. This morning, China provided some good news with the Manufacturing PMI (Feb) beating forecast (50.2 compared to the forecast of 49.9) and the Caixin Manufacturing PI (Feb ) sounding beating the estimate (50.4 to 49.5).  This is good news to start the day as this changed the negative sentiment about production coming out from China. In the coming week, the USA is set to make a few key updates namely: ADP nonfarm employment change (Feb) on 02 Mar 2022 Crude oil inventories on 02 Mar 2022 Initial jobless claims on 03 Mar 2022 ISM non-manufacturing PMI (Feb) on 03 Mar 2022 Nonfarm Payrolls (Feb) on 04 March 2022 Unemployment Ra...