Earlier in the week the Purchasing Manager’s reports were released for the month of November. Of the thirty-something headline manufacturing numbers we keep track of, the mix was broadly similar to last month, 19 reports saw an improvement on last month and 16 were lower. Interestingly, Germany continued its recent improvement (now 44.1 from a multi-year low of 41.7 in September) as did Canada, France, Japan and the US, taking the latter to a 3 month winning streak. Also, China’s release beat expectations and rose to 51.8, the fourth monthly improvement above the key 50 level.
However, following the Markit US Manufacturing PMI, the US’ official ISM manufacturing report told a slightly different tale, as the index contracted for a fourth straight month, unexpectedly declining to 48.1, and the employment and new orders components also failed to beat market expectations as well as October’s levels.
Moving on to the services reports, the Eurozone index inched back a tad to 51.9 from 52.2 whereas the UK fell below 50 once again to mark an 8-month low, at 49.3. In the US, we had both the Markit services PMI release which was unchanged at 51.6 and ISM non-manufacturing release, at 53.9, slightly lower than expected but both still above the key 50 level.
The all-important US employment releases for November are due later today. According to Bloomberg, markets are looking for +183k jobs added, the unemployment rate to stick at 3.6%, and hourly earnings up marginally at 0.3% mom and 3%yoy. Following the weaker than expected ADP reading earlier in the week some market makers have revised their nonfarm expectations lower.