The US manufacturing PMI in January dropped by 1.8 percentage points from the seasonally adjusted December level of 60.5pc to 58.7pc in January 2021.
The level reinforces continued expansion for the eighth-consecutive month after a contraction in May and also reflects a slight downtick from the start of 2020. Fabricated metal products were one of the five biggest manufacturing industries that expanded, according to the index released by the Institute of Supply Management (ISM).
New orders slipped by 6.4 percentage points to 61.1pc in January against 67.5pc in December. Production index also decreased by 4pc points in January to 60.7pc. New export orders also declined by 2.6pc points from 57.5pc in December to 54.9pc in January.
Inventories fell nominally by 0.2 percentage points to 50.8pc and customer’s inventories fell 4.8 percentage points to 33.1pc showing that consumer demand is growing but buyers are slowing activity on amassing inventory levels until they get a clearer outlook on the economy.
However, many indexes increased in January as employment rose by 0.9 percentage points to 52.6pc, supplier deliveries climbed by 0.5 percentage points to 68.2pc, and the backlog of orders increased by 0.6 percentage points to 59.7pc. Prices are increasing as the price index rose by 4.5 percentage points to 82.1pc. Imports also grew in January with the index rising by 2.2 percentage points to 56.8pc.