US slowdown

 I remain convinced that the US is slowing.  Just how deep the downturn is, I cannot tell, because there are so many factors changing so rapidly.  Trump's policies and policy shifts have damaged confidence and increased uncertainty, and there is no knowing when rational policy will be followed.  In the meantime, all we have is the current data.

The chart below shows the unweighted average of the ISM manufacturing and services surveys, and I have been following it for more than 20 years for its insight into what is happening in the economy.  

Note how the whole economy ISM had started to rise, but from February onwards has been falling.  The start of the decline coincided with Trump's inauguration.  This can be more clearly seen in the chart below, which shows the same data, but for a shorter period.

Of course, there are many indicators, and they show varying pictures for the first five months of this year.  But, as I said, I have followed this indicator for a long time, and it has proved reliable.  Note that I extreme-adjusted each time series before I added them together, but the extreme-adjustment process only slightly reduced the January observation for the manufacturing PMI from 50.9 to 50.3.
 

I'll keep you posted.