Over the last two weeks, the Institute of Supply Management has released their latest purchasing managers index of the manufacturing and service sector. Both were positive, showing an underlying economic strength that belies the recent market carnage. In today’s column, I’ll organize the related economic data around these reports to show that the underlying economy is in good shape.
Let’s start with the manufacturing numbers which fell .2 but is still a very strong 59.1. The report’s anecdotal comments were strong: