The Institute for Supply Management announced on Tuesday that its Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) for Manufacturing index rose 1.5 percentage points to 54.7 in December, its highest level in two years and up from 53.2 in November.
This is great news- let’s look at some details to find out why:

  • New Orders component– new orders rose 7.2 percentage points to 60.2 – their highest level since November 2014
  • Strength in Employment component– employment rose 0.8 percentage point to 53.1 – the highest since June 2015
  • And strength in the Production component-production improved to 60.3- very unusual outcomes for Manufacturing in December.

This is an unexpectedly solid report showing Manufacturing industry performance stronger in December than in November.

Highest in 2 years and up 1.5 points over November 2016
Highest in 2 years and up 1.5 points over November 2016

Here is why we see this as a bellwether for a great 2017 for our precision machining companies.

  • U.S. Light Vehicle (Auto) Sales set annual sales record according to the Wall Street Journal and reports we heard from online videos from AUTO NEWS. “A total of 17.55 million vehicles were sold in 2016, roughly 60% of which were classified as light trucks” according to the Wall Street Journal.
  • 2016 sales volume was up ~ 700,000 light vehicles, according to reports from Auto News
  • The average age of the U.S. Light Vehicle Fleet in 2016 was a record 11.6 years, According to Statista online, 

There is still plenty of reason to expect demand for light cars and trucks to be sustained based on the average age of the U.S. Fleet and the current low unemployment rate reported by the Federal government. Knowing that Automotive is the precision machining industry’s most heavily served market convinces us that these numbers reported by ISM, WSJ, Auto News and Statista bode well for our precision machining shops in 2017. I hope that you are preparing for success, not for hunkering down in 2017.
Happy New Year, indeed!

Auspicious!
Auspicious!

 
Link to ISM December 2016 report
Statista Age of Light Vehicles in U.S.

Calculated Risk December ISM Post and Chart