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Forest2Market: July 14, 2023
1 min read
As measured by the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) PMI, manufacturing activity jumped noticeably in July -- to 55.4%, an increase of 4.5 percentage points from June's reading of 50.9% (Figure 2). "Comments from the [respondent] panel generally indicate stable demand and slowly improving business conditions," said Bradley Holcomb, chair of ISM's Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.
The magnitude of the PMI's advance was somewhat unexpected, as the Chicago Business Barometer --usually a fairly reliable indicator of how the PMI will behave -- printed well below expectations.
Both Wood and Paper Products saw overall growth (Table 3) although, as has often been the case in recent years, support for Wood Products among the sub-indices was lacking. Support for Paper Products’ expansion was much more widespread. One Paper Products respondent opined that "overall conditions remain steady and slightly above prior year."
Non-Manufacturing
The pace of growth in the service sector during July was also quite remarkable (Figure 3). The non-manufacturing index registered 56%, 3.8 percentage points higher than the 52.2% registered in June. That move was the largest monthly increase since April 2009 and handily beat expectations of 53.1%.
Commodities used/produced by the manufacturing or non-manufacturing sectors that were up in price included caustic soda, corrugated boxes and packaging, oil, diesel and gasoline, and paper products. Natural gas was down in price. No relevant commodities were in short supply.
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