Today the U.S. Manufacturing ISM report came out; according to it the U.S. Manufacturing PMI growth rate augmented again to 54.1% during January. The U.S. Manufacturing PMI is an index that presents the economic progress of the U.S. manufacturing sector; the index rose for the 30th consecutive month; the growth rate rose from 53.1% in December to 54.1% in January i.e. a 1 percent point gain. This means that the U.S. manufacturing sector is growing at a higher pace in January compared with December.
Among the factors that were examined in this survey: one of the sharpest gains was in the new orders: from 54.8% to 57.6% – an increase of 2.8 percent point; exports also grew by 2.0 percent points; prices shifted from a decrease to an increase as its rate settled at 55.5%; on the other hand, among the sectors that contracted were customers inventories at 47.5% and inventories at 49.5%.
According to Roache et. al (2008) it was inferred the PMI Manufacturing ISM report has a negative relation with gold and silver prices, without controlling to the U.S dollar effect. But currently, it seems that this news doesn’t affect gold and silver prices as they are traded up. 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 increase, so do natural gas prices. Currently natural gas prices are sharply falling; other energy commodities prices such as WTI oil is also declining.
The U.S. stock market indexes are currently traded slightly up; this includes the DOW, S&P500 and NASDAQ.
Current gold price, (March 2012 delivery) is traded at $ 1,746 per t oz. a $6.2 increase or 0.36%, as of 19:18*.
Current Nymex crude oil price, (March 2012 delivery) is traded down by 0.55%, at $97.94 per barrel as of 19:18*.
Euros to USD is currently traded at 1.3167 a 0.63% increase as of 19:27*.
(* GMT)
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