Via FTAlphaville:
It’s confession time for IHS Markit, the firm behind the purchasing managers’ indices.
The firm asks thousands of purchasing managers whether activity over the current month has declined, improved, or stayed about the same compared with the previous month. IHS Markit then tallies responses up to produce a net figure where 50 signals no change in activity from month to month. Therefore, anything below 50 is seen as a contraction, and anything above 50 an expansion.
