A famous person complained this morning that the dismal outlook for U.S. manufacturing expressed in today’s ISM report was all about the Fed allowing the dollar to rise to the point where “our manufacturers are being negatively affected”.
Well, let’s look at that.
Sure enough, the Euro (for example) is notably down year-to-date against the dollar:
If indeed it’s true that the strong dollar explains weak U.S. manufacturing, the weak Euro must therefore be really good for Eurozone manufacturing, right?
Well, Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) results were just released for much of the rest of the world as well, and, frankly, there’s gotta be something else going on.
Here’s the year-to-date chart for Eurozone PMI, updated this morning:
Hmm….. that’s even weaker than the U.S.’s results…
The other thing is, per our earlier post, the Fed and the dollar were not mentioned once in the ISM’s narrative, nor in the featured respondents’ commentaries. Trade war, and tariffs, on the other hand, were mentioned numerously…