So much for the slowdown.

Business activity in the US picked up markedly in May, according to preliminary PMIs released by S&P Global on Thursday.

The updates don’t count as “top-tier” data and they’ll be summarily dismissed as ancillary once ISM releases its PMIs for May in two weeks.

But as incremental, “fill-the-void” releases go, the S&P Global updates serve a purpose. (Don’t ask me what that purpose is. I don’t have a great answer.)

The services measure printed 54.8 in the flash reading, up sharply from April’s final print and indicative of the briskest expansion in a year. Consensus was 51.5.

The manufacturing print was a beat too, at 50.9. The handful of economists who ventured a guess collectively expected 50.1.

“The economic upturn has accelerated again after two months of slower growth [putting] the US back on course for another solid GDP gain in the second quarter,” S&P Global chief business economist Chris Williamson said Thursday.

This good news may be bad news. You know the story: The Fed needs a slowdown in order to facilitate inflation’s return to 2%. An outperforming economy’s an impediment. Or can be.

“Selling price inflation has meanwhile ticked higher and continues to signal modestly above-target inflation,” Williamson went on, adding that “the main inflationary impetus” is on the goods side now.

Of course, service inflation’s still running warm, so renewed upward pressure on goods prices suggests above-target inflation on both sides of the economy.

As Williamson put it, “rates of inflation for costs and selling prices are now somewhat elevated by pre-pandemic standards in both sectors.” That, in turn, “suggest[s] the final mile down to the Fed’s 2% target” may prove “elusive.”