06/07/2011: Profit Margins in Irish Services and Manufacturing

Based on latest Manufacturing and Services PMIs, let's update my index of profit margins in Irish economy.

• Profit margins continued to decline in Services, with the rate of decline slowing down from -19.74 in May to -16.02 in June. Profit margins declines are still steeper than 12mo MA of -14.6, but are now more moderate than the Q2 2011 average of 20.1 and Q1 2011 average of 17.4. However, profit margins declines for Q1 2011 were more benign than in Q2 2011.
• Profit margins in Services are now on the declining trend for 24 months straight and have accelerated significantly since 2009 and 2010. 2010 H1 average was -6.9 and 2009 H1 average was -11.0.
  
• Profit margins volatility has risen steeply during the crisis. The standard deviation for profit margins in Services was 5.29 for the entire history of the series and 5.31 for the period from 2000 through today. However, volatility now reads 7.90 for the period from January 2008 through today - the period of the crisis.
  
• Profit margins in Manufacturing also continued to decline in June, with the rate of decline moderating even more than in Services from-21.19 in May to -16.22 in June. Profit margins rates of decline are now more moderate than 12mo MA of 20.6. Q1 2011 profit margins rate of decline was -20.8 with Q2 2011 declines steeper at -23.6.
• Profit margins in Manufacturing are now on the downward trend for 28 months in a row. 2010 H1 average decline was -19.3 and 2009 H1 average was -3.7, implying that 2011 deterioration in profit margins is steeper than in both previous years.
• Profit margins volatility also rose in manufacturing during the crisis. Historical standard deviation for profit margin indicator in manufacturing stands at 6.95, while since 2000 through today volatility is 6.98. However volatility since January 2008 is 8.92.

05/07/2011: Employment in Services and Manufacturing - June 2011

As promised earlier, analysis of employment data from Manufacturing and Services PMIs for June 2011.

• Headline on Services PMIs: After posting only marginal growth in the previous month at 50.5, Irish services activity rose at a faster pace in June to 52.4. However, overall Q2 2011 average at 51.0 signals lower rate of expansion than Q1 2011 at 53.4. Current index is above it's 12mo MA of 51.6.
• Headline on Manufacturing PMIs: June activity signals a slowdown at 49.8, down from expansionary May reading of 51.8. Q1 2011 expansion of 56.1 average has moderated through Q2 2011 to 52.5. 12mo MA is at 52.6.
• Employment sub-index in Manufacturing showed further acceleration in the rate of decline from 49.9 in May to 48.3 in June. The sub-index now stands below 12mo MA of 50.2. Q1 2011 average was expansionary 53.2 and despite two consecutive months of contractions, Q2 sub-index still reads 50.7. This compares favorably relative to Q3 2010 reading of 46.8 and Q4 2010 reading of 49.9. Employment in Manufacturing has now fallen for two months, breaking expansionary readings trends established over December 2010-April 2011.
  
• Employment sub-index in Services remained flat at 48.1, signaling continued contraction in May and marking a second consecutive month of contractions since an outlier expansion in April 2011 to 51.1. 12mo MA is now at 48.7, while Q1 2011 reading was 49.2, accelerating down to 49.1 in Q2 2011. In comparison, Q3 2010 reading was 48.9 and Q4 2010 reading was 47.6, so the rate of jobs attrition in the sector has declined in H1 2011 relative to H2 2010. With April 2011 out-of-line reading of expansion, this index remains in contractionary territory in 39 out of 40 last months

With both Manufacturing and Services signaling contractions in employment, we are now firmly into jobless recovery territory in Services and stepping into the recessionary territory for Manufacturing.

It is worth noting that volatility of employment sub-index has risen since the beginning of the crisis in Manufacturing, but declined in Services, most likely due to the persistent trends in domestic services. The same pattern is true for core PMIs.

05/07/2011: Services PMIs: June 2011

Services PMIs for Ireland are out today for June from NCB Stockbrokers. Last week, manufacturing PMIs came in disappointingly low, signaling renewed contraction in the sector (see details here). The headline numbers for services are:

• Core PMI reading for Service has risen to 52.4 in June from 50.5 in May - a reasonably strong increase. Controlling for volatility, last 3mo average stands at 51.0, down from the Q1 2011 average of 53.4, and below 12mo MA of 51.6, which means that the current reading is still short of Q1 2011 average, but ahead of it's own quarter average and historical average.
• Q2 2010 period average was 52.9, ahead of Q2 2011 average of 51.0. To compare to the dire conditions in 2009 - Q2 2009 average was 38.0. Now, remember, PMI is not an absolute measure of activity, but a relative one, which means that given a deep fall-off of 2009, we need strong growth - again, my benchmark would be to see PMIs in 60s+ - in 2010 and 2011 to compensate for the declines in 2009. This not happening. Still, it is good to see the index sticking above 50 for the 6th month in the row.

• New business index - my concern last month - has notched up on May, rising from 48.2 in May to a still contractionary 49.4 in June. Current reading is consistent with the Q2 2011 average and is down on both Q1 2011 average of 50.9 and 12mo average of 49.9. Q2 2010 reading was 52.6. Again, as with core PMI Q2 2009 reading was 37.5 - abysmally low, but there was no recovery since then, as new business index was stuck below 50 in all months except April-August 2010 and February-April 2011, furthermore, index never reached beyond 54.0 (June 2010), so no momentum in terms of new business orders recovery.
  

Note in the above chart, that we now are two consecutive months running with core PMI signaling weak expansion, while New Business Orders PMI stuck in contraction zone.

In terms of other components - note, I will be covering employment in a separate post for both Services and Manufacturing PMIs:

• Backlogs of work have declined again in June - from 44.9 in May to 44.5 in June, implying that service providers shifted more resources to complete unfinished work. Q2 2011 average stands at a contractionary 45.3, down from Q1 2011 average of 48.0 and 2010 Q2 average of 48.8. 12mo average reads 45.6.
• Employment index remained flat at contractionary 48.1, down from expansionary 51.1 in April. With April 2011 out-of-line reading of expansion, this index remains in contractionary territory in 39 out of 40 last months. More on this later.
• Output Prices/Charges index has fallen further into contraction (deflation) territory, declining from 43.9 in May to 43.5 in June and marking 35th consecutive month of declines (in a separate post I will be covering the issues of profit margins, so stay tuned for more on output/input prices divergence).
• Input prices have remained in expansion territory, although the pace of inflation has moderated further from 54.7 in May to 51.8 in June, with June marking 3 consecutive month of moderating input prices growth.
• Confidence / Business Expectations index has shown lower rate of growth, with June reading of 60.3 coming in behind May index reading of 62.3. Overall, Q2 2011 average was 63.1 and Q1 2011 average was 65.8, while 12mo average stands at 64.0, so clearly confidence is getting stronger slower. This is largely irrelevant in my view, as the index reading was averaging 50.7 (growing confidence) during the abysmal Q2 2009, just as other components were showing massive fall-off the cliff for services activities in Ireland. In addition, I have previously shown that over the entire life-span of the series data, confidence failed to act as a predictor of any real future activity (core PMIs, New Orders, New Export Orders or Employment) in the sector.
  
• New Export Business index continued to signal expansion, albeit at lower rates with June index standing at 53.1 down from 54.4 in May. Q2 2011 average now stands at 54.0 against Q1 2011 average of 54.8. 12mo average is 53.6, while Q2 2010 was 56.5. So data suggests a clear slowdown in the rate of exports growth. This, of course, is an important indicator as CSO does not report monthly series for services exports.
  
• Finally, profitability index has moderated the fall recorded in May, rising from contractionary May reading of 41.4 to still contractionary 44.8 in June. June reading is now ahead of Q2 average of 43.7, and Q1 2011 average of 43.5, but behind Q2 2010 average of 48.0 and behind 12mo average of 45.5. Again, more on profitability in a separate post

04/06/11: Services PMIs - detailed breakdown

The last post on latest PMIs - this time detailed breakdown of Services data. In previous post I have covered:

• Manufacturing PMIs
• Manufacturing and Services PMIs - showing relationships between Employment and PMIs (the 'Jobless Recovery' slowing down story, as well as between Exports New Orders and Employment, showing that probability of having a jobless 'growth' through exports is over 40% for both Services and Manufacturing)

So no on to detailed Services PMIs analysis.

Headline numbers:

• Overall Business Activity has improved marginally to 50.5 in May from 50.2 in April. Both readings fall within the area above 50 which signals extremely weak expansion. Since 2000, Services PMI standard deviation was 7.966, and since 2008 - the beginning of the crisis it stands at 6.839. The latest move puts Services PMI at a level below both the 12mo average of 51.9 and the 3mo average of 50.6. Previous 3mo average was 52.1, while 2010 annual average was 51.
• New Business activity index stands at 48.2 in May, down significantly on 50.6 reading in April and crossing into a full contraction territory, breaking three consecutive months of signaling extremely modest gains. 12mo average stands at 50.3 and 3mo average stands at 50.2, but what is even more disappointing is that the latest monthly reading falls below the already poor index reading for the 3 months of December 2010-February 2011 which were adversely impacted by the inclement weather.

• There's been a clear (although volatile) side-ways flat trend around zero growth in Services New Business activity for some time now - from about the beginning (Feb-Mar) 2010. And it is not changing so far.
• Next, consider prices - the signal of profit margins. These were discussed in an earlier post and I produced a new sub-index using NCB PMIs data for Services and Manufacturing profit margins conditions (see the third chart in here).
  
• Output prices have posted deeper deflation in May, falling to 43.9 from April's already deflationary 45.4. Overall, this marks 34th consecutive month of deflation in output prices.
• Meanwhile, input price inflation has moderated slightly from 55.7 in April to 54.7 in May. This marks 6th consecutive month of continued inflation in terms of inputs costs.
• It is worth noting that the traditional metrics of 'competitiveness', based on unit labour costs fail to account for the non-labour inputs costs, thus missing the full picture of declining competitiveness in the Irish economy. My index (referenced above and shown here) clearly indicates that in terms of inputs costs relative to output prices competitiveness Irish economy has been trading at zero net improvement for both sub-sectors over the entire period since September 2002.

• Employment sub-index in Services sector has posted significant deterioration in May, falling to 48.1 from 51.1 in April. April above 50 reading was the first one since February 2008 and this glimmer of hope was now firmly erased by the latest data.
• For the fans of the 'If only we were confident in Ireland' school of economic thinking, Service PMIs show the fallacy of groundless hopes. Irish businesses in the Services Sector were showing high levels of confidence (in excess of 55 and most in the 60s) since August 2009. Every month after month. They still do - May reading of 62.3 was extremely robust, although down on 66.6 in April. Oh, yes, folks - 12mo average for Confidence is now at a blistering 64.8, matched by 3mo average through May and virtually identical to 3mo average for December 2010-February 2011 64.7. 2010 March-May average was 66.7. So does Confidence translate into growth? Or does Confidence translate in jobs? I will examine this in a separate blog post below.
• Lastly - New Export Business slipped marginally from 54.6 in April to 54.4 in May. Moderate growth continues in the exports territory - the only solidly good news over the last 5 months on Services side.
  

03/06/2011: Services and Manufacturing PMIs signal a slowdown

A quick post on some additional analysis of the PMIs released this week. Combining Services and Manufacturing PMIs.

As noted in the previous post, Manufacturing PMIs have posted weakening performance, declining to 51.8 in May from 56 in April and falling below 12mo and 3mo averages. Detailed analysis of Services PMIs is to follow in the next post, but the headline figure showed a marginal improvement to 50.5 from 50.2 in May, also below 12mo and 3mo averages.
Thus, as the chart above shows, both Manufacturing and Services PMIs reflect extremely slow rates of expansion. This is reflected in employment data:
Employment sub-index has now fallen to 48.1 from 51.1 in April for Services, which means that employment is now set to contract in the sector. At 48.1, employment sub-index in Services stands below 12mo, 3mo average, 3mo to May 2010 average and relative to 2010. Employment in manufacturing is also now in the contraction territory with a reading of 49.9 in May, down from 54.0 in April. 3mo average and 12mo average both were above 50.

Using PMI data, I computed my own index of profitability or index of profit margins based on the sub-indices for prices of inputs and outputs. Chart below illustrates:
What is clear from the above chart is that deflation of final output prices is being contrasted by slightly moderating inflation in the input prices, which in turn means that both sectors of the economy are continuing to operate in the environment of shrinking profit margins. This cannot be good. Also note that in the last 2 months, the rate of decline in profit margins is the third fastest for Services and fourth fastest for manufacturing since September 2002.

In longer-term outlook, we are clearly regressing relative to January 2011 in both Services and Manufacturing:
We are also operating in the environment of very weak recovery and continued growth in unemployment.

Lastly, lets look at some relationships between unemployment and exports orders. Remember the idea of exports-led recoveries?
Well, couple of things can be noted from the chart above. Firstly, as expected, there is a stronger relationship between stronger exports orders growth and jobs creation in the Services sector than in Manufacturing. This explains why we had months of booming PMIs on Manufacturing side and no serious new jobs creation. Second thing to note: historically (the data is since 1998 for Manufacturing and 2002 for Services), there is a 40.3% chance on Manufacturing side that an expansion in Exports orders is going to be associated with contraction in employment (a Jobless Recovery scenario). For Services sector this probability is 43%.

3/02/2011: Services PMI for Ireland

NCB released their PMI for January for Irish Services sector. Headline news is good:

• After contracting in December, Irish Services sector showed modest growth, signaled by PMI rising to 53.9 (up from December contractionary 47.4)
• January reading of 53.9 was ahead of 12 months average of 51.5 and well ahead of Q1 2010 reading of 47.6
• January 2011 reading, however was below Summer 2010 peak readings of 55.4 and 55.7 in June and July

Or over the entire series history:
And a more recent snapshot with the core driver of increase:

New business orders have actually fallen in January, with a reading of just 47.7, marking 5th consecutive month of declines. 12-months average was 50.0 but Q1 2010 reading average was 47.1, so realistically speaking, the latest reading is not an improvement.

Historically, you can see where we are from here:

Other sub-components showed weaknesses, with exports orders being trend breakers and the driver of the positive improvement in overall PMI reading:

Hence:, quoting from the NCB report:

• New Export Business In contrast to the trend seen for overall new business, new export orders rose markedly over the month, with the UK a key source of new work. New export business has now expanded in the sector in sixteen of the past seventeen months
• Backlogs of Work Falling new business alongside increased activity led to a further reduction in backlogs of work during January, extending the current sequence of depletion to forty-one months
• Providers expect economic conditions in Ireland to improve over the coming year, leading to higher new business and subsequently increased activity. According to respondents, export markets will remain a key source of growth over the year. The level of optimism in the service sector improved to the highest since last September

• Input cost inflation accelerated over the month, but remained much weaker than the long run series average. Where input prices increased, panelists mentioned higher fuel costs as well as rising taxes [My comment - the wedge between input and output prices points to severe pressures on services providers' margins]
• Irish service providers were unable to pass on higher cost burdens to their clients during January. Intense competition was the main factor leading firms to cut charges, which fell at a substantial pace that was steeper than that seen in the previous month
• Profitability at Irish services companies continued to decline over the three months to January, extending the current period of decline to thirty-seven survey periods. Moreover, the pace of reduction was the sharpest since the three months to February 2010, with panelists reporting a combination of lower sales and strong competition

• Employment continues to be a bad performer with jobs losses continued
  

So on the net Services have jumped into expansion zone, but the recovery at the very best is jobless and volatility of the series implies that it will take several months of continued robust improvements in index sub-components to provide comfort in the sector improvements overall:

Economics 5/8/10: Service PMIs

Time to update my earlier post on PMIs - this time with new data on services PMIs. The original post is here. Once again, the data is from NCB Stockbrokers PMI release and you can read their very good objective analysis on their site.
New business activity in the chat above is the one to worry about going forward. Giving a snapshot of more recent periods:
Here, both, the flattening out of the expansion rate in total business activity and the decline in the growth of new business activity are pretty clearly evident. Nonetheless, both series are above 50, signaling continued expansion.
Underlying macro parameters are a mixed bag. Business expectations are still improving and are pretty robust, though the rate of improvement is slipping. More dramatic is the slippage in the rate of new export business orders expansion. In the mean time, contraction continues across services employment and profitability, though the rate of contraction is slowing and is almost reaching zero.

Unlike in the case of manufacturing PMIs, services-related prices are trending in the right direction:deflation is setting in once again in input prices and deflation is ongoing, but at a slowing rate, in terms of output prices.

Putting services and manufacturing sectors side by side, first consider the employment picture:
Both employment pools are contracting. Manufacturing employment has crossed into negative growth territory, while employment in services sectors is falling at a slower rate than before.

Lastly, putting side by side actual PMIs:
Expansion in manufacturing has been under pressure in Ireland over the last three months. Meanwhile, services sector has been on expansionary path since the beginning of the year.

Of course, PMIs are not a perfect signal for near term future of the overall economic activity. Nonetheless, the series have been signaling weak expansion for almost 7 months now. This is the good news. The bad news is that there is low degree of confidence in the gains made so far, especially in manufacturing. In all likelihood September-November will be the key months when it comes to either stabilizing economy in a growth mode, or triggering a double dip. In my view, the risk of the latter before the end of Q1 20111 is around 40-45% and rising.

Economics 3/8/10: Ireland's PMIs

NCB Stockbrokers today released their latest data for Irish PMIs for Manufacturing.

Core conclusions: "the rebound in the Irish manufacturing sector lost momentum again in July.
Both output and new business increased at slower rates, while employment fell for the second month running. Reduced capacity at suppliers led to the fastest lengthening of lead times in the history of the series. The seasonally adjusted NCB Purchasing Managers’ Index™ ...fell for the second month running, posting 51.4 in July, down from 51.8 in the previous month.

The reading indicated that although operating conditions in the sector improved, the rate of strengthening was the weakest in the current five month sequence. Output growth eased for the third successive month..."

Overall - a very balanced analytical note from NCB, as usual. Worth a close read.

As usual, let me update my charts based on the NCB dataset.

First manufacturing:
The downward pressure is clearly visible in all three PMI-underlying core series. A close up snapshot reveals it in more details:
Output and new export orders series are perhaps the most significant signals of the weaknesses ahead.

Much of the improvements in PMIs globally (and in Ireland) were driven earlier this year by the need to restore supply capacities: This momentum now appears to be close to exhaustion despite the fact that slack capacity remains unfilled.
Prices are showing continued deterioration in margins. Overall input prices deviation from the output prices and the recent crossing of output prices into contraction zone for the index suggest that margins are being significantly undermined. The uptick in employment index, though significant since the crisis lows, is yet to translate into new hires and is now back in contraction territory (since June).

Next, updating Service PMIs (note - the latest data is for June 2010).

Services are posting much more sustainable recovery trend (albeit with less impressive peak of growth so far) than manufacturing. New business trending alongside overall PMIs suggests that unlike the case of inventories-driven manufacturing PMIs expansion, new business is driving most of the service activity rebound. The snapshot of data below highlights this:
However, it is worth watching some of the macro sub-components of the services PMIs:
In particular, both business expectations and profitability are appearing to be on cusp of a shift downward. More importantly, both profitability and employment appear to be stuck in contraction territory.
In terms of prices, inputs deflation is almost exhausted, but outputs are stubbornly refusing to move into higher prices territory - margins are thus down, which should be bad news for employment in months ahead.

Employment picture overall is not too encouraging:
Original support at modest expansion levels in manufacturing, registered earlier this year has now slipped back into contraction. Services employment remains below expansion line, though the rate of contraction is slowing pretty aggressively. It remains to be seen, however, what July data will tell us about services component.

Economics 05/06/2009: PMI, Live Register & Why Brian Cowen is simply wrong on economy

So things are getting better, say Comrade ‘Surreal Economist’ Cowen. Translated into human language (any human language short of North Korean) this really means that we have a terrible crisis that is getting worse at a decreasing (for now) rate. What do I mean?

Exchequer returns were bad, but they were not worse than in April. Hmmm – it only took thousands of families drowned in fresh taxes to get us this far. And add to it a ‘slowdown’ in the rate of growth in expenditure. Mr Cowen calls this ‘the right policy that is supported by the majority of economists and the ESRI’. About the only part of this assessment that I would agree with is the one which separates ESRI from economists – being a nearly purely state-paid ‘group-think tank’, ESRI is not about economics, it is about kissing the… you know what.

Back to the ‘greening’ shoots of this week… Irish PMI figures came in with a slowdown in the rate of decline… same as with the Exchequer results… again – things are not getting better, they are getting worse, but worse at a slower pace. Now, services sectors in Ireland, per PMI, shrank for the consecutive 16^th month in May, as NCB’s PMI rose from 32.2 in April to 39.5 in May. If this is a glimmer of hope, it is a smile from the bottom of the ocean. Future expectations are up to 50.8 in May, which is good news, when compared to the reading of 46.6 in April, but what this means exactly, given that we are heading into summer doldrums is highly unclear. One brighter star at the bottom of the barrel was Technology, Media & Telecos (TMT) – most upbeat of all sectors. Apparently, contraction is over in the sector, per May data. I am sceptical here, since this sector just got a boost from political advertising spend, and it has contracted at an extremely fast pace in December 2008-February 2009. Furthermore, most of the spend for the TMT sector for 2009 has already been allocated, so the contraction might have overshot the target before, with a slight bounce to the low flat trend expected about now.

Manufacturing PMI came virtually with the same results as services PMI, delivering a rise to 39.4 in May from 36.1. In other words – still no expansion, or 16 straight months of contraction. Export component of PMI rose, but remains below expansion reading. “With the domestic economy so weak, look for the new export orders component of the PMI to breach the 50 mark before the headline PMI will follow suit”, NCB’s Brian Devine told The Guardian. I agree. So where does this leaves Mr Cowen’s ‘right’ policies? Oh, not far from the proverbial ‘hole’. If Mr Cowen’s policies were right, we should not be expecting our economy to be rescued by exports or in other words, if our policies were to work, they would have positive effect on domestic economy. Instead, Mr Cowen is now positioning himself to claim completely undue credit for any upturn in the global economy… after having spent last 10 months blaming the world for Irish economic troubles.

Going forward, my expectation is for a flat trend for both PMI reports with some volatility in months to come. Autumn 2009 can potentially yield another round of relatively shallow (compared to 2008) contractions, especially in services.

The real issue from now on will be what can we do with an army of unemployed, bankrupt families that is amassing in the country and how can we get out of the hole that Mr Cowen and his predecessor have forced us into.

Today’s Live Register data does not provide much of hope that the task will be easy. In May there was another 13,500 increase in numbers claiming benefits in May. It might have been the lowest monthly rise since September 2008, but we now have 402,100 on the Live Reg and we are still on track for reaching 500,000 before we can toast the New Year.

Dynamics are tough to gauge. May’s monthly rate of increase was 3.5%, down for the fourth consecutive month and the slowest pace of growth since May 2008. But there is no indication that we are not going to see another bout of accelerating growth in unemployment comes June and then September-October. One reason to note – males are still dominating the firing line (65% of all new additions to the LR in May), so at some point in time, there will be new entry by women. How do I know? Simple – since December, layoffs have been moving off the construction sector into other, more ‘gender balanced’ sectors. I many cases, employers there offered voluntary redundancies with rather generous pay-offs. Women were the most likely to take such for a number of reasons:

· Women are more willing to switch into part-time employment;

· Women are more likely to go into continued education than men;

· Women are more likely to undertake family work than men etc

So this means that there a many ‘hidden’ layoffs working their way through redundancy packages that will surface once money becomes extremely tight.

Just in case you still believe in Mr Cowen’s economic assessment, give the following fact a thought. It comes courtesy of the Ulster Bank economics team and I agree with them wholly:

“The Live Register estimate of the unemployment rate increased from 11.4% in April to 11.8% in May, a rate last seen in May 1996. Our unemployment rate forecast of 14% by the end of this year therefore continues to look realistic. While today’s figures were certainly a welcome improvement on preceding months, the numbers signing on will continue to rise in coming months, as job losses in the services sector, most notably in wholesale and retail and hotels and restaurants, in addition to layoffs in construction, are ongoing. We therefore continue to forecast that the unemployment rate will peak at 16% by the end of 2010, before falling back gradually when the economy starts to recover.”

So Brian’s policies are working, then… too bad he can’t even tell us which policies he has in mind…