PMI is based on surveys, while industrial production is based on actual production. It is a crazy election year, and people are mildly freaking out. Their “outlook” for the future can be opposites depending on their political views. This will cause all “sentiment” indicators to be completely unreliable…
Just focus on what is actually happening.
“Davidson” submits:
The PMI(Manufacturing) continues to indicate recession while IndPro (industrial Production) continues to say no recession. The history from Dec 1977 reveals that IndPro, an economic indicator, has been correct while the PMI, a market psychology measure, ebbs and flows with the SP500 calling about 3x more recessions than we have actually experienced. As a market psychology measure, the PMI is particularly good at indicating market buying points when it does not agree with economics. The current period is certaily one of the widest divergences between economics and market psychology in quite a while. There are several similar periods in this history with IndPro always the better economic and market price indicator.