Overview
- S&P Global’s final composite Purchasing Managers’ Index for September confirmed a 58.4 reading that shows the fastest overall private-sector expansion in more than five years.
- U.S. surveys showed very strong services growth and hiring while the ISM prices-paid gauge jumped to 74.0, signalling a big rise in input costs that could feed through to consumer inflation.
- The eurozone recorded its strongest pace of private-sector growth in about 3½ years in September while firms reported faster input and selling-price inflation.
- National outcomes diverged with Japan reporting faster hiring and elevated output-price inflation that could support a Bank of Japan rate move, while the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa showed softer activity and continued job cuts in services.
- Survey authors and market moves linked higher fuel and energy bills to the Middle East conflict and said the combined growth and price signals raise the odds of more policy tightening from major central banks, a development that could lift borrowing costs for households and businesses.