Global| May 02 2025Globally Manufacturing Weakens
The global manufacturing data showed broad weakening in April as conditions weakened across more than half of the contributing early reporters in the S&P survey of manufacturing. Of the 18 early reporting countries, more than half of them showed deceleration over six months and 12 months. Over three months, only 8 of 18 showed deterioration and that's about as good as it got in this report. In the current month, month-to-month changes showed more than half of the survey contributors showing weaker results than the month before. In the S&P framework, manufacturing improved month-to-month for the U.S.; however, looking at sequential averages for the U.S., U.K., European monetary union, Canada, and Japan, we see a steady weakening and results over 12 months, over six months versus 12 months, and for three months versus 6 months. The highly developed countries are not doing particularly well.
Asian economies are also showing slight deterioration but doing a little better than the developed countries in general.
Only five of the 18 reporting countries have queue percentile standings in their data back to January 2021 that are above their medians. Readings at or above the 50% mark are at or above the median standing. Canada is showing the weakest manufacturing result on record over this span, in terms of its queue percentile standing which is at 0 in the current month.
I showed the graphic for the Baltic dry goods index in this report rather than statistics on the manufacturing PMI data because the Baltic data, which reflect shipping volume for dry goods - that is excluding things like oil - is weak but it's only in the neighborhood where it's been for some time. There has been a great deal of talk about how tariffs may have impacted trade flows, expected trade flows, shipping, shipping rates, and the like. However, according to the Baltic dry goods index, there isn't much evidence that this is occurring right now and affecting the current data. That may still lie ahead but for now it's not baked in the cake.
Robert Brusca
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Robert A. Brusca is Chief Economist of Fact and Opinion Economics, a consulting firm he founded in Manhattan. He has been an economist on Wall Street for over 25 years. He has visited central banking and large institutional clients in over 30 countries in his career as an economist. Mr. Brusca was a Divisional Research Chief at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (Chief of the International Financial markets Division), a Fed Watcher at Irving Trust and Chief Economist at Nikko Securities International. He is widely quoted and appears in various media. Mr. Brusca holds an MA and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. His research pursues his strong interests in non aligned policy economics as well as international economics. FAO Economics’ research targets investors to assist them in making better investment decisions in stocks, bonds and in a variety of international assets. The company does not manage money and has no conflicts in giving economic advice.
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