Markit Services PMI: "Slowest Business Activity Growth Since March 2017"

The April US Services Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 53.0 percent, down 2.3 from the final March estimate of 55.3. The Investing.com consensus was for 52.8 percent. Markit's Services PMI is a diffusion index: A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector; below 50 indicates contraction.

Here is the opening from the latest press release:

Commenting on the PMI data, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:

"The final PMI surveys for April indicate a marked slowing of the US economy at the start of the second quarter, suggesting the robust start to the year has lost some momentum. Businesses reported the weakest output and sales growth for two years, indicative of GDP growth slowing to 1.9% in April."

"While the first quarter saw factory weakness being offset by a robust service sector, both manufacturing and services have now shifted into a lower gear." [Press Release]

Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012.

Here is an overlay with the equivalent PMI survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management, which they refer to as "Non-Manufacturing" (see our full article on this series here). Over the past year, the ISM metric has been significantly the more volatile of the two.

The next chart uses a three-month moving average of the two rather volatile series to facilitate our understanding of the current trend. Since early in 2016, the ISM metric has shown stronger growth than the Markit counterpart.

Both series weakened since 2015 and saw an uptick in the latter half of 2016. The interim three-month moving average of the Markit Services index peaked in August of 2014. The ISM index peaked in September of 2015. The two were fairly closely aligned at the beginning of 2016, but they diverged early with the Markit index signaling noticeably weaker growth.