The ISM Manufacturing PMI, formally the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, is a monthly diffusion index compiled by the Institute for Supply Management from a survey of purchasing and supply executives at more than 400 US manufacturing companies, first published in its modern form in 1948. A reading above 50 indicates the manufacturing sector is generally expanding compared with the prior month while a reading below 50 indicates contraction, and because the survey results are typically released on the first business day of the month, well ahead of official government output data, it is one of the earliest and most closely watched monthly signals of the direction of the US manufacturing economy; equivalent purchasing managers' indices compiled by S&P Global (formerly IHS Markit) are published for dozens of other countries.
Facts
Classification
Release FrequencySourced to the subject's own account Timing Class Geography
Geographic ScopeUnited States (Institute for Supply Management) 3 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Purchasing managers' index (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWikipedia, "Purchasing managers' index", lead section
Purchasing managers' indexes (PMI) are economic indicators derived from monthly surveys of private sector companies.
Introduction, frequency
The ISM Manufacturing PMI, formally the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, is a monthly diffusion index compiled by the Institute for Supply Management from a survey of purchasing and supply executives at more than 400 US manufacturing companies, first published in its modern form in 1948.
View the Source 2. US Leading Indicators (The Conference Board)
3. Institute for Supply Management (ISM)
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a PMI reading above or below 50 actually mean?
50.0 is the dividing line: above it, more survey respondents reported improvement than decline; below it, more reported decline.
The Purchasing Managers Index is built from a monthly survey asking businesses whether conditions (new orders, output, employment and more) improved, worsened, or stayed the same. A reading of exactly 50.0 means the panel is evenly split or reports no change; anything over 50.0 indicates more respondents saw improvement than decline, and anything under 50.0 indicates more saw decline than improvement. The distance from 50.0, not just which side of it a reading falls on, is meaningful: a reading of 55.0 reflects a more widely reported increase than a reading of 52.5. ISM Manufacturing PMI is the best-known US version of this index, but the same 50.0 threshold applies to every purchasing managers index produced worldwide, since they share the same diffusion-index construction.
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