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ISM Services Index  
Released On 1/7/2019 10:00:00 AM For Dec, 2018
 PriorConsensusConsensus RangeActual
Index60.7 58.4 54.6  to 60.3 57.6 
US 6-Mo ChartGlobal Current
performance relative to consensus

Consensus Outlook
A robust but easing rate of growth is the call for ISM's non-manufacturing index for December, at a consensus 58.4 vs 60.7 in November. This indicator has beaten Econoday's consensus for the last four reports and beat the high estimate in November. New orders including export orders were central strengths in the last report.

Relative Performance Index

Econoday's RPI provides a handy summary measure of how an economy has recently been evolving relative to market expectations.
A reading above zero means that the economy in general has been performing more strongly than expected and vice versa for a reading below zero. The closer is the value to the maximum (+100) or minimum (-100) levels, the greater is the degree to which markets have been under- or over-estimating economic activity. A zero outturn would imply that, on average, the market consensus has been correct. Note too that the index is sensitized to place extra weight upon those indicators that investors consider to be the most important.

 

Definition
Producing a monthly composite on general activity tracked in volumes, the Institute for Supply Management surveys several hundred service-providing firms from 16 industries (construction and mining are included). The services composite index has four equally weighted components: business activity (closely related to a production index), new orders, employment, and supplier deliveries (also known as vendor performance). The first three components are seasonally adjusted but the supplier deliveries index does not have statistically significant seasonality and is not adjusted. For the composite index, a reading above 50 percent indicates that the services economy is generally expanding; below 50 percent indicates that it is generally declining. The supplier deliveries component index requires extra explanation: a reading above 50 percent indicates slower deliveries and below 50 percent indicates faster deliveries. Why Investors Care

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