Majors' "flash" PMIs creep up in May

IHS Markit publishes "flash" (= preliminary PMIs) for the US, Japan, Australia, Euro-zone and UK.  They give the earliest indication of trends in the world's major economies.  Unfortunately, there is no preliminary PMI published for China.  However, the GDP-weighted average PMI of the USA, Japan, Europe and the UK tracks world PMI very closely.

The first chart shows the weighted average PMI of these four countries compared to the weighted average of their industrial production (IP).

Note how IP had started to pick up in response to the US Fed's rate cuts even before the covid crash.  This can also be seen in the PMI.  We don't have enough data to calculate world IP for April, let alone May, yet, but you may depend upon it that IP plunged in April and prolly also May.

To calculate a big-4 (or big-5, including the UK) PMI for May, I have estimated China's PMI for May, using my automated algorithm.  It predicts a modest fall in China's average PMI  for May.  But that may not happen.  However, even if China's May PMI  rises, the big-5's May increase will still be small.

April was prolly the low point of the cycle.  But a rapid recovery seems unlikely.  Not a V-shaped recovery.  U?  L?  W?  Perhaps I'm just too bearish, as usual.

As usual, my calculations of PMI and IP  aggregates, weighted by PPP GDP.