I don’t buy it. You can blame the weather for so much but looking in detail at the numbers it just doesn’t add up.
US ISM mfg PMI 03 02 2014
Production, imports/exports & customer inventories are about the only ones on there I can see being affected by the weather. As I noted in the my last post the weather doesn’t stop people picking up the phone or ordering online. Supplier deliveries rose, backlogs and inventories fell, so unless the magic pixies were shifting goods they got around somehow.
The comments also tell a more believable story even if they may be cherry picked.
US ISM mfg PMI comments 03 02 2014
ISM’s Holcomb says it was a “blip on the screen” so we’ll have to see how we do next month. We’ve also got another “blip” to see out in Friday’s jobs report. Get your shovels ready if it’s another bad one.