Starting to Cool? U.S. and Chinese Manufacturing Snapshots

According to these reports from NADCA, manufacturing appears to be slowing in the U.S. and other nations, while Chinese manufacturing slowed for the first time in six months.

U.S. Manufacturing Expanded At A Slower Pace in May
Bloomberg News (6/1, Woellert) reported, “Manufacturing in the U.S. grew at a slower pace in May as factories tempered production and pared inventories in response to weakness in the global economy.” The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index dropped “to 53.5 after reaching a 10-month high of 54.8 in April,” the Tempe, Arizona-based group reported. “Manufacturing, which has been a bright spot since the economic expansion began three years ago, may be starting to cool. While gains in auto sales are underpinning factory growth, the industry may become strained by stagnation in Europe’s economy, U.S. fiscal concerns and less corporate investment.”

AFP (6/1) reported, “The ISM sub-index of manufacturing prices plunged from 61.0 to 47.5, showing prices overall decreased in May – the first decrease since December 2011. Both exports and order backlogs also decreased and customer inventories continued to shrink from the previous month, translating into a slowdown in the growth of overall production from 61.0 to 55.6.”

CNN Money (6/1, Fox) reported, “Although manufacturing growth slowed, May marked the 34th month in a row that activity expanded.”