The summary: A reasonably-decent report
The report was issued today by Anthony Nieves, C.P.M., CFPM, chair of the Institute for Supply Management™ Non-Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. "The NMI™ registered 56.1 percent in December, 1.4 percentage points higher than the 54.7 percent registered in November. This indicates continued growth at a slightly faster rate in the non-manufacturing sector. "
......
The surprise for me was the acceleration in employment to 56.3 from 50.3. This may have been seasonal and is definitely not congruent with the services reports we have from the regions, including most-particularly Richmond.
It is what it is, and on-balance it's positive. The only "gotcha" is that backlog is contracting, which implies (rather strongly) that production is above demand, and the spread between that and the new orders number is significant.
There's nothing to complain about in this report however, on balance. We shall have to wait for January's number to see if this was a seasonal blip or if it's real.

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