Eco Week

Business sentiment continues to improve

07/03/2020

With an increasing number of countries scaling back if not removing the lockdown measures, the purchasing managers’ indices have improved further in June. The world manufacturing PMI is now even above the level reached in February. Big increases have been noted in the US, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Turkey, Indonesia and Vietnam. Brazil and India have also seen a considerable improvement, which seems at odds with the health situation in these countries.

The assessment of export orders has also improved, though less than the manufacturing index. In Ireland and Turkey, the rebound is particularly strong and the index is again above the 50 mark.

In terms of the services sector, the string pick-up continues in the eurozone, but contrary to manufacturing, we are still below the February level. The rebound in France from the April low has been spectacular. The same applies for Spain. In China services sector sentiment is now particularly strong, reaching the highest level for the period covered by the heatmap.

The manufacturing employment PMI is important to monitor given its correlation with the observed change in employment and the relationship with household spending. Although this series did improve in June, the pace is slower than for the overall manufacturing PMI. In several countries, it is stagnating (Italy is an exemple) or even declining, such as in Japan.

MANUFACTURING PMI (WORLD)
MANUFACTURING PMI - NEW EXPORT ORDERS (WORLD)
MANUFACTURING PMI - EMPLOYMENT (WORLD)
SERVICES PMI (WORLD)
PMI INDICATORS (EUROZONE)
THE EXPERT ECONOMISTS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS ARTICLE

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