December 2014 US ISM non manufacturing PMI 56.2 vs 58.0 exp

• Prior 59.3
• Business activity 57.2 vs 63.5 exp. Prior 64.4
• Employment 56.0 vs 56.7 prior
• New orders 58.9 vs 61.4 prior
• Prices paid 49.5 vs 54.4 prior

Dollar gets that sinking feeling as it drops to 118.61 but is aided by the worse factory orders and durables revisions.

Still everything outside of the jobs picture is ending 2014 on a soft note.

Exports lower for the 9th month but import fell. The sector is still well into expansion and respondents are pretty chipper.

US ISM non manufacturing PMI 06 01 2015

US ISM non manufacturing PMI chart 06 01 2015

Let’s see what explanation the ISM comes out with shortly

Update: Speak of the devil

ISM chairman Anthony Nieves says;

• Index shows a little bit of moderation
• There is a concerted effort to not add to inventories
• West coast port delays disrupting supplies
• Many indexes still showing good growth rates
• Need to wait for Jan data to see trend
• Index couldn’t hold such strong rates of growth and services were bound to moderate
• There is still very good activity
• Retailers had a strong month in December (a little nod to retail sales data there perhaps)