The August US Services Purchasing Managers’ Index conducted by S&P Global came in at 43.7 percent, down from the final July estimate of 47.3 and in contraction territory.
August saw the US economy slide into a steepening downturn, underscoring the rising risk of a deepening recession as households and business grapple with the rising cost of living and tightening financial conditions.
“Businesses are reporting a deterioration in output and order books of a degree exceeded since the global financial crisis only by that seen during the initial pandemic lockdowns.
“While orders are being lost across the board as a result of rising prices and the cost-of-living squeeze, the steepest downturn is being recorded in the financial services sector, reflecting the additional impact of higher interest rates and worsening financial conditions.
“Jobs growth has meanwhile cooled as companies grow increasingly reluctant to expand in the face of falling demand and an uncertain outlook, which will serve to further dampen growth in the coming months.
“One positive form the survey was a substantial fall in the rate of input cost inflation, which should help to moderate consumer price growth in the months ahead, albeit with the rate of increase remaining stubbornly elevated.” [Press Release]
Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012.
Here is an overlay with the equivalent PMI survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management, which they refer to as “Non-Manufacturing” (see our full article on this series here). Over its history, the ISM metric has been significantly the more volatile of the two.
The next chart uses a three-month moving average of the two rather volatile series to facilitate our understanding of the current trend. Since early in 2016, the ISM metric has shown stronger growth than the Markit counterpart.
Editor’s Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.
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