It’s my favorite time of the month… flash PMI time: the June flash manufacturing PMI composite for developed markets fell -1pt to 54.5 — which is the lowest point since August last year. On the detail, the fall was driven by the US (-1.8pts to 54.6) and Europe (-0.5 to 55.0), while Japan provide a minor offset (+0.3 to 53.1). Clearly the results show a softening trend in aggregate for developed economies since the start of the year – interestingly though we also saw a period of softer data in the first half of 2017, which reached its Nadir in June. So it will be interesting to see if we get the same kind of almost seasonal effect happening again this year, i.e. a re-acceleration in the second half of the year.I think this scenario is plausible, because a lot of the underlying drivers of global growth are still intact, and often times the PMIs can be unduly influence by sentiment and news. Given the clear link with bond yields, this will be important to keep on top of.
