7/9/2014: What do PMIs Signal on Global Growth?..

Here's an interesting point raised recently by @phil_waechter: the global growth that is supposed to accelerate in H2 2014 is really not happening and worse, compositionally, the prospect of such growth is heavily reliant on one country's fortunes: the U.S.

Things are not pretty, but they are not as ugly as the above chart shows, at least in the short run of the last 2 months. Here are the summaries for global growth by index:

In Services, there is weakening growth, but still levels are relatively robust, with New Business accelerating, marginally, while Future Activity expectations moderating.

And in Manufacturing, there is marginally stronger growth, with new orders slipping by just 0.1 points.

Composite indicator shows some pressures to the upside in growth forward: backlogs indicator showing a rise, new orders similarly showing some very modest support up.

Emerging markets are generally improving in August, with exception of Brazil. Russia breaking downward trend, but this remains to be confirmed in September-October before any serious turnaround can be called. South Africa is weak, Brazil weak, although net is still more positive than in May-July:

So the longer term trends are weak, when it comes to the likes of the euro area, but are reasonably ok. The real weakness is in the euro area. Here is the summary of just how much the euro area performance across all PMIs is weighing down on the global growth:

Just another reminder, this is supposedly the European Century...