World economic activity grew modestly in May when seen through the lens of the Sales Managers Indexes for the world's largest economies (China, the USA and India).
For most recent decades these three countries have collectively contributed close to 60% of total global growth, and in reality, probably significantly more, as the "rest of the world" in this case includes many countries with less reliable and often exaggerated data.
In any event, if the survey results from these three countries collectively are suggesting that a small recovery is underway, the threat to global trade from the Trump Tariffs may be less of a problem than feared.
The overall Sales Managers Indexes for all three countries are in fact now back over the 50 "no growth" line, suggesting that the retreat by the US Government from the most punitive tariff levels initially threatened has allowed most economic activity (to date) to continue largely unabated. The Staffing Indexes in China remain the exception to this tale of modest recovery, and continue to suggest a lot of caution remains in China in relation to business expansion, while the threat of giant tariff's remains unresolved.
The Sales Managers' Indexes provide the earliest monthly data on the speed and direction of economic activity in key growth areas of the world.
The SMI’s (Sales Managers’ Indexes) are compiled and analysed by World Economics and are based on survey data collected from a panel of companies stratifying all Industry Classification Board (ICB) sectors which are weighted to reflect their contribution to national Gross Domestic Product.
Key advantages of the SMI's:
Global SMI data is published as diffusion indexes to gauge the speed and direction of economic activity.
Monthly data for 8 years is downloadable in a consistent unadjusted format for the 6 key indexes: