PSI edges towards expansion

The Australian Industry Group’s services PMI for March is out today and shows continued improvement albeit at a slowing pace, up 1.1 points to 49.6 and on the verge of expansion:

The internals are not quite so encouraging. The sectoral split shows that penny-pinching food is still dominating activity:

And new orders did not improve from last month:

And although employment tipped into positive territory, the trend is nothing to do backflips over:

Indeed, a glance at the internals generally shows a distinct pattern of slowing in the second derivative:

This release rather suggests that after the January and February party apparent in retail sales, sobriety returned in March.

Psi Report March 2013 Final