Just caught the latest ISM manufacturing index reading and it's interesting how things are playing out. The index ticked up to 48.7 in August after hitting a nine-month low of 48.0 the month before, but we're still below 50 which means contraction is still the name of the game. Six straight months of this now. What caught my eye though was new orders jumping to 51.4 from 47.1 - that's actually the main driver of the manufacturing index improvement. At least something's showing a pulse there. On the flip side, production actually got worse, dropping from 51.4 to 47.8. So you've got new orders picking up but manufacturers aren't producing more? That's a weird dynamic. Employment stayed weak too, creeping up slightly to 43.8 but still in contraction territory for the seventh month running. The manufacturing index basically showed a modest rebound, but it feels more like a technical bounce than real momentum. The head of the ISM survey basically said the same thing - yeah the index went up, but production's still contracting almost as fast as new orders are growing, so the whole manufacturing index move is pretty nominal. Anyway, they're supposed to release service sector data soon, so we'll see if that's holding up better than manufacturing.