US economic output hits 16-month low in April, expectations crater

New information from S&P Global retired Wednesday showed its flash composite PMI output index, which captures enactment successful the services and manufacturing sectors, fell to 51.2 successful April, hitting its lowest level successful 16 months.

Manufacturing enactment roseate to 50.7, up from 50.2 successful March, portion services enactment fell to 51.4 from 54.4. Readings supra 50 bespeak an enlargement successful enactment successful the sector; readings beneath 50 bespeak contraction.

Sentiment astir the twelvemonth up fell sharply, reaching the lowest level since July 2022 and the second-lowest since September 2020.

Meanwhile, prices charged for goods and services "rose astatine the sharpest complaint for conscionable implicit a year," S&P Global said successful a release. Manufactured goods saw an "especially steep increase," associated with higher tariffs.

Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the system and your wallet

"The aboriginal flash PMI information for April constituent to a marked slowing of concern enactment maturation astatine the commencement of the 2nd quarter, accompanied by a slump successful optimism astir the outlook," said Chris Williamson, main concern economist astatine S&P Global Market Intelligence. "At the aforesaid time, terms pressures intensified, creating a headache for a cardinal slope which is coming nether expanding unit to enactment up a weakening system conscionable arsenic ostentation looks acceptable to rise."

Williamson added that assurance astir concern conditions successful the twelvemonth up has deteriorated, "largely acknowledgment to increasing concerns astir the interaction of caller authorities argumentation announcements."

Wednesday's information is the latest successful a drawstring of anemic surveys connected enactment successful the manufacturing and services sectors. On Tuesday, the Richmond Federal Reserve's survey of manufacturing enactment revealed the composite manufacturing scale fell to -13 successful April, down from -4. Meanwhile, caller orders successful the period fell to a speechmaking of -15, good beneath the -4 seen successful March. Also retired Tuesday, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's nonmanufacturing concern outlook survey tumbled to a speechmaking of -42.7, its lowest speechmaking since May 2020.

That information followed the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey past week, which showed wide enactment successful the assemblage dropped to an scale speechmaking of -26 successful April, its lowest speechmaking since April 2023 and good beneath the 12.5 speechmaking the period prior. April's crisp determination little marked the fourth-largest monthly diminution successful history, lone trailing the drop-offs successful 2020 and 2008.