Today the U.S. Manufacturing ISM report was published; according to the update, the U.S. Manufacturing PMI growth rate edged down again to 52.4% during February. The U.S. Manufacturing PMI is an index that estimates the economic progress of the U.S. manufacturing sector; the index rose for the 31st consecutive month; nevertheless, the growth rate declined from 54.1% in January to 52.4% in February i.e. a 1.7 percent point drop. This means that the U.S. manufacturing sector is growing at a slightly slower pace in February compared with January.
Among the factors that were examined in this survey: one of the sharpest gains was in prices: from 55.5% to 61.5% – an increase of 6 percent point; exports also grew by 4.5 percent points; prices to 59.5%; on the other hand, among the sectors that contracted were suppliers deliveries at 49% and customers inventories at 46%.
According to Roache et. al (2008) it was inferred the PMI Manufacturing ISM report has had a negative correlation between the shifts in gold and silver prices and PMI Manufacturing ISM index, without controlling to the U.S dollar effect. Currently, it seems that this news may have helped rally gold and silver prices during the day. Furthermore, the PMI news suppose to have a positive lagged relation with natural gas prices, i.e. all things considered including the U.S dollar, as the PMI Manufacturing ISM index tends to decrease, so do natural gas prices. Currently natural gas prices are sharply declining; other energy commodities prices such as WTI oil are rising.
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