Manufacturing recession eases

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The August PMI is out and shows some improvement in a slowing recession, though the trend still looks awful:

In an encouraging sign, new orders were up strongly to only shrinking slightly!

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If we look at the sectoral split we get a hint of what may be happening:

The three big improvers are all retail facing food, clothes, furniture and printing. We may be enjoying a bit of an inventory build following the last few months of carbon rebate retail bounty.

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It’s sure isn’t exports:

pmiaug12new

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.