Post and Rocky Continue To Ignore Good ISM Regional Reports

June 23rd, 2006 1:29 PM

The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News continue to ignore the good economic news in the ISM's Regional Reports on Business. The Institute for Supply Management's monthly national survey is one of the most respected and widely-followed economy surveys, covering as it does the expected purchasing and hiring trends, as well as the trailing indicators of price and supplier performance.

In addition to the national survey, the ISM also publishes monthly regional surveys, one of which is based in Denver. For the last two months, the manufacturing survey has been extremely strong. This month, the more violatile non-manufacturing index moved from slightly negative (49.4) to solidly positive at 53.2.

The Rocky gave plenty of space to the unreliable Index of Leading Economic Indicators and the one-week increase in the volatile Jobless Claims, ignoring the decline in the more reliable 4-week moving average.

Personally, I believe we're cresting the economic cycle, but economic news is always mixed. Eliminating the positive while accentuating the negative doesn't help anyone make informed decisions.

Cross-posted at View From a Height.