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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (24642)	3/1/2005 12:01:04 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

U.S. ISM index falls; now down for four straight months - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 4:23:28 PM afxpress.com WASHINGTON (AFX) -- Factory activity in the United States decelerated again in February, the Institute for Supply Management reported Tuesday. The closely tracked ISM index has slipped for four straight months and now stands at its lowest level since September 2003. The ISM index unexpectedly fell to 55.3 percent last month from January's reading of 56.4 percent. The consensus forecast of estimates collected by MarketWatch was for the index to rise to 56.7 percent. "While the overall rate of growth is slowing, the overall picture is improving as price increases and shortages are becoming less of a problem," said Norbert Ore, chair of the ISM factory survey Treasury bond prices rose after the ISM data were released. Readings above 50 indicate expansion. Despite the recent downtrend, the index has been above 50 for 21 straight months Josh Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., noted that the ISM level in the first two months of the year is consistent with year-over-year growth in U.S. growth domestic product of slightly below 4.0 percent. This "seems to be a reasonable outcome for the first quarter," he said Within the ISM index for Feburary, new orders fell to 55.8 from 56.5 in January, while production fell to 56.7 from 57.8 The employment index fell to 57.4 from 58.1 Prices fell to 65.5 in February from 69.0 in January Inventories fell sharply to 48.6 from 52.8 "This suggests that firms are continuing to choose to operate with extremely low levels of inventories -- a fact that suggests some continued trepidation on the part of businesses regarding the consumer," said Drew Matus, economist at Lehman Brothers In a separate report issued Tuesday, the Commerce Department said construction spending rose 0.7 percent in January.