ISM Manufacturing Report Deceptively Not Very Strong

Although it came in higher than expected, the August Purchasing Managers Index report was not as strong as the headlines would have you believe. The components of the index which had the greatest positive effect on the overall index level (and their indicated trend) were:  Prices +4% (increasing faster), Imports 4% (growing faster), and Customer Inventories +4.5% (low but slowing).  Here is the source of this information:  LINK

As I suspected, pricing pressure is building in the system, inventory build is slowing down and imports are increasing, which is not really value-added in terms of putting U.S. workers to work or creating much-needed growth in our domestic capital base.

Once again the Truth is to be found somewhere other than where the media spotlight is shining...