Daily Market Notes
The ISM Printed 54.9. Our Noise Floor Held and Our Consensus Cluster Did Not.
The ISM services index printed 54.9 against a 55.4 August prior, and the two claims this desk published a week ago split: the 1.09-point noise floor held — a 0.5 fall is 0.46 of an average month — while the four-vendor cluster at 55.0, 55.0, 55.1 and 55.2 did not contain the answer, missing by a tenth on the low side. TD Securities' 54.0 was wrong by 0.9, nine times the nearest vendor's error. The August prior was not revised, and a third month now reconciles the composite identity: July's four components sum to 216.5 and divide to 54.125. The number that embarrasses the exercise is August's own consensus of 54.1 — identical to July's print — which missed by 1.3, or 1.19 average months.