As overall US manufacturing languishes, Heartland manufacturing indicates slow growth. Exports and imports show improvement.
According to the latest Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Report on Business, US manufacturing continued a downward track in May. It read that this was the seventh month of contraction and a continuation of the downward trend that began in June 2022.
May new export orders hovered at 50 percent in May, somewhat higher than the April reading of 49.8 percent. This indicated that export orders were unchanged in May after nine consecutive months in contraction territory preceded by 25 straight months of expansion.
May imports fell to 47.3 percent in May, a decrease of 2.6 percentage points compared to April's figure of 49.9 percent.
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In the Heartland, the Creighton University Mid-America Business Conditions Index, a leading economic indicator for the nine-state region stretching from Minnesota to Arkansas, expanded for a fourth straight month.
“After flashing recession warning signals between November 2022 and January 2023, Creighton’s monthly survey of manufacturing supply managers over the past several months is now pointing to positive but slow growth with somewhat lower inflationary pressures at the wholesale level,” said Ernie Goss, PhD, director of Creighton University’s Economic Forecasting Group and the Jack A. MacAllister Chair in Regional Economics in the Heider College of Business.
Prof Goss noted that “trade numbers were once again weak for the month with new export orders rising to a weak 46.2 from April’s 42.9. On the other hand, imports climbed to 52.8 from 47.0 in April.”
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