US growth remains strong, but slips a little

 The US manufacturing ISM and PMI surveys slipped again in October.  As ever, to get a better idea of the underlying trend, I have averaged the extreme-adjusted version of each time series.  So the green line is the one to watch.

The whole-economy version of this chart, i.e. a 50/50 average of the extreme-adjusted PMI and ISM surveys for manufacturing and services, showed a slight uptick in the latest month:

But if we look at the whole-economy ISM survey, which goes back much further than the PMI  survey, the economy is as strong as it's been in 35 years, which, given the deep covid crash recession, plus the huge monetary and fiscal stimulus,  is not in the least surprising.  I expect growth to slow gradually, as the rebound effect and fiscal stimulus ease, but it will remain strong until the Fed starts to raise rates or until a new deadlier variant of covid emerges.