US mfr'g and services PMI, Jay Powell should read the inflation comments

The S&P Global US PMI fell a touch to 52.2 from 52.5 in March. Manufacturing ticked up to 52.5 from 52.2 but services slipped to 51.7 from 52.3.

With manufacturing, the restock of inventory is not a smooth process. S&P Global said “firms scaled back their purchasing activity in March following a marginal rise in February. Anecdotal evidence suggested that inventories had been built to a level sufficient to support current workloads, leading to efforts to draw down stocks. In fact, stocks of both purchases and finished goods were reduced following increases in the previous survey period. The fall in stocks of purchases was the sharpest since last November.” Employment did pick up and production led the headline improvement.

The services figure was the lowest in 3 months due to cost pressures, though employment rose here too.