At the start of a new month, the purchasing managers indices are amongst the earliest data providing information on what happened the month before. Following the coronavirus outbreak they were even more eagerly awaited than normal. For the manufacturing sector, the picture is very mixed, with a considerable decline for the world index on the back of huge drops in China and Hong Kong. On the other hand, the index for the eurozone saw another increase, driven by Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece with Italy remaining stable and France weakening. In the US, both the Markit PMI and the ISM index declined. Clearly, except for China and Hong Kong, the data do not yet show the impact of the coronavirus epidemic but it is only a matter of time for this to happen. To some degree this also applies to the services PMIs. For this sector, there were huge declines in China and Hong Kong. Japan weakened considerably, contributing to the decline of the world index. The eurozone was stable. The decline in the US is puzzling considering that the ISM non-manufacturing index improved.
MANUFACTURING PMI
SERVICES PMI 
