Fed Advised To ‘Move Cautiously’ On Cuts As PMI Price Gauges Rise
"The Fed cannot totally shift its focus away from its inflation target," S&P Global's Chris Williamson warned on Monday.
The context: Six-month-high rates of selling price inflation for both services and manufactured goods across the world's largest economy, according to subindexes released alongside preliminary PMI data for September.
As expected, the updates told a tale of two economies. The US services sector kept expanding this month, while manufacturing contracted. Again.
At 55.4, th
“Meteorology has ever been an apple of contention, as if the violent commotions of the atmosphere induced a sympathetic effect on the minds of those who have attempted to study them.”
Joseph Henry, 1797-1878
Well, that’s probably the most interesting commentary of the day. I’ve always had issues with calling PMI releases “data” when they are actually surveys. Useful but not hard data, in this old guy’s mind.
That said, those observations may be superior to the output from the econometric models the Fed relies upon. All is not lost! It’s clear that finding what the neutral interest rate is will soon be revealed if we could just parse even more data sets at higher speeds, AI to the rescue!
What a waste of time and energy this all is.
“What a waste of time and energy this all is.” – this an apt description of my current view of my job and politics. I feel like I’m caught between living in two Mike Judge movies: Office Space and Idiocracy. I may need to take a seat next to Beavis and Butthead on a bus across America to get away from it all if the situation persists.
dayjob – I always applaud a B&B reference!
I wonder how accurate a diffusion index survey is at measuring rate of change. If survey questions are “is X up, down, or unchanged”, how do you conclude X is +3.4% yoy?