US ISM PMI increased to 60.8 in February 2021.

 

The prices increased further by 3.9 to 86 because of the rising freight costs.  This also impacted the supplier’s deliveries by +3.8 to 72 as a higher number indicated slower deliveries.  It seemed that the rising freight costs were deterring manufacturers from ordering raw materials.

http://sg-stock.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-us-inflation-is-coming-part-5.html

However, the producers ramped up their production (63.2, +2.5) further which resulted in inventories reduction (49.7, -1.1) and an increase in employment (54.4, +1.8) to prepare for a rebound in the customers’ inventories (32.5, -0.6) which was too low.  The increase in new order (64.8, +3.7) was due to higher new export and local orders.  This could be seen in the monthly US retail sales figure below.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/24/us-retail-sales-to-rise-6point5percent-to-8point2percent-in-2021-national-retail-federation-says.html

All these resulted in the PMI that increased to 60.8 (+2.1) in Feb 2021.  This means that the US economy will still continue to improve unless there is another major lockdown due to the new covid variant.