What Is PMI Data

PMI in five lines

PMI is a survey, scored as a number. The purchasing managers of a few hundred firms, the people who order the parts a factory needs, are asked each month whether orders, output, jobs, deliveries and stocks are up, down or the same since last month. The number is the share saying up plus half the share saying the same, so that fifty means standing still, above fifty growing and below fifty shrinking. In the United States it lands on the first business day of the month at 17:00 on the feed's clock, manufacturing first and services two days later. On 1 May 2026 the minute moved the euro against the dollar 13.9 pips, where a pip is the fourth decimal place of the price, and on 1 July 10.8.

A show of hands

Picture a show of hands in a room of buyers. Each is asked whether orders rose, fell or stayed the same this month; green hands are up, red are down, grey are the same. With forty in the room, eighteen up, twelve down and ten the same, the index is the share up, forty-five percent, plus half the share unchanged, twelve and a half, which is 57.5: above fifty, so growing. PMI is that show of hands, scored, and the reason it is watched is timing. The buyers see the orders on their desks weeks before the statisticians count the output, so the survey lands first, and the market reads it as an early word on the counts to come.

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