US S&P Global flash October services PMI 57.9 vs 58.0 expected

• Prior was 59.8
• Manufacturing 56.0 vs 55.5 expected
• Prior manufacturing 57.0
• Composite 57.6 vs 58.4 prior
• selling prices rose at the sharpest rate since August 2022
• New orders highest in over four-and-a-half years
• Business output expectations for the 12 months ahead cooled compared to September but were still the second highest seen this year

One of the big surprises last month -- and one that the market took as a hawkish signal at time time -- was the jump in this survey. Employment was at the strongest since June 2022 and input cost inflation at the highest since Oct 2022.

Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence:

“October’s flash PMI data indicate that the US economy continues to boom at the start of the fourth quarter. The output readings from the survey are consistent with GDP growing at a 5% annualized rate after a 4% expansion was signalled for the third quarter. Especially healthy corporate earnings and profits are also indicated, and hiring has surged as companies seek to boost capacity to fulfil stronger customer demand.

“If the reopening of the economy after COVID is excluded, recent months have seen the best growth spell for US businesses since early 2015.

“However, cost pressures remain a key concern, notably as the renewed surge in oil prices reverberates through to impact a wide variety of goods and services. Supply chain bottlenecks have meanwhile intensified, and order book backlogs are growing, making it easier for companies to pass higher costs on to customers. The result is the sharpest increase in selling prices for over four years to a pace that indicates consumer price inflation is likely to rise further above the Fed’s target in the coming months.”

If the Fed took this report seriously, they would be hiking next week. In theory, it's a good forward-looking indicator at the front edge of leading indicators but in practice, it's been mediocre at predicting economic momentum in the post-covid period.

For background, the S&P Global publishes flash estimates of its US Purchasing Managers’ Indexes for manufacturing and services each month at 9:45 am ET, usually about a week before the month ends. The flash readings are based on roughly 85% of survey responses, making them one of the earliest snapshots of US business conditions. Final figures follow in the first days of the next month and rarely differ much from the flash.

The indexes are diffusion measures built from surveys of purchasing managers at private-sector companies. A reading above 50 indicates expansion from the prior month and below 50 signals contraction. The manufacturing PMI is a composite of five sub-indexes: new orders, output, employment, suppliers’ delivery times and stocks of purchases. The services headline is the business activity index, based on a single question about activity levels. The two feed into a composite output index, which gives a broad read on private-sector growth.

The sub-indexes are often more revealing than the headlines. Input prices and output prices, or prices charged, offer an early gauge of cost pressures and how much firms are passing them on to customers, which makes them closely watched for inflation signals. Employment, new orders, export orders and business expectations add detail on demand and hiring.

The S&P Global PMIs tend to move markets less than the ISM surveys, which have a longer history and a larger following, though the two sometimes diverge. Their main advantage is timing and comparability. Flash PMIs for the eurozone, UK, Japan, Australia and India land the same day, giving traders a synchronized look at the global economy and letting them judge US momentum against other major economies.