Economy in Brief

The Standard and Poor’s measures for manufacturing unemployment globally show somewhat mixed results tilted to weakness I went in October as 7 of 18 improved month-to-month while 11 of 18 worsened. The median observation for October fell by 0.6 diffusion points to 48.7, a value that indicates manufacturing contraction overall among this broad sample of reporting units.

Sequential trends Sequential trends show 8 of 18 reporters with improved manufacturing PMIs comparing average levels over three months to six months ago. Comparing average levels of six months to 12 months ago, ten of them are improved out of 18. The six-month mark shows that there has been a broad improvement compared to 12 months ago; however, over 12 months compared to the period of 12 months earlier, there is broad weakening; only five reporters show stronger values over 12 months than over 12 months ago.

Rankings Ranking data that assess the current October levels of the PMI among all data since January 2019 show that the average standing among that queue of values for these reporters is at the 26th percentile; that’s right at the bottom 25% of all observations for the period. This marks the current manufacturing set of estimates as quite weak. Mexico and Russia show percentile standings around the top ten percentile of data over this period. Only 4 reporting units show PMI values that are above their medians which means above the ranking of 50%; one country, South Korea, is right at its 50% mark. The two countries that are above their medians are above them moderately: India with the 59.6 percentile standing and Indonesia with a 57.7 percentile standing.

Compare to pre-Covid Compared to data back to January 2020, only four reporters show stronger values for manufacturing PMIs: Russia (if you believe it), Mexico, Indonesia, and India. South Korea sits at the same mark it had in January 2020.

On balance… On balance, manufacturing remains quite weak globally with little sense of momentum. The median for the PMI values from 12-months to 6-months to 3-months has crept higher but very little, moving from 48.5 to 48.6 to 49.1. These metrics compare to an October stand-alone median reading at its 48.7 percentile – weaker again.