ISM Manufacturing Expands At A Slower Pace In Feb

Per the ISM Report published today, Manufacturing continued to expand in February but at a slower pace. The PMI index registered a 56.5 percent reading, a drop of 1.9 points from January's reading of 58.4. As discussed before, any reading above 50 indicates an expansion - so, this is still good news.

Key Highlights from the report:
* New Orders index declined 6.4 percentage points (65.9 percent in Jan to 59.5 in Feb). This is the 8th consecutive month of growth for New Orders.
* Production index declined 7.8 percentage points (66.2 in Jan to 58.4 in Feb). This is the 9th consecutive month of growth for Production.
* Employment notched up by 2.8 percentage points (53.3 in Jan to 56.1 in Feb). This is the 3rd consecutive month of growth in manufacturing employment.

In general, this is a strong ISM report showing continued expansion. There are a lot more economic reports in the pipeline this week including February car sales due tomorrow, ISM Non-Manufacturing report on Wednesday, ADP report on Wednesday and BLS unemployment report on Friday.