Once Mighty US Services Sector Held Up During Winter COVID Surge, Irrelevant Numbers Suggest

Miraculously, ISM services managed to print a solid upside surprise for December. I say "miraculously" -- it's hard to know what's surprising and what isn't these days. The services sector is obviously vulnerable in any scenario where COVID-19 reasserts itself, which is clearly the case in the US, where the dreaded "winter wave" didn't just materialize, it came in the form of a tsunami. But, according to ISM, services sector activity was more robust last month than it was in November. The head