Institute for Supply Management

Number one, manufacturing is running on overtime.

ISM's manufacturing index has been an expansion for eight straight months.

Employment in the sector is up 58,000 since the December low.

Manufacturing job openings jumped by roughly 75,000 to 80,000 in July, the biggest gain of any sector, and SIA's data says the plants are covering it with overtime.

Diesel just hit an all-time high, $6.31 a gallon.

That's the Iran conflict and the Strait of Hormuz working its way into every fuel pump and every freight invoice in America.

ISM's manufacturing prices index has now risen for 23 straight months.

And the Fed new chair, Kevin Warsh, didn't soften it.

I don't know if renewed is the right word, but I guess encouraging signs coming out of the industrial economy slash manufacturing sectors.

And the baseline I'll use for that is the ISM's monthly manufacturing report on business, which in 2026... is a perfect 8 for 8 through August.

That perfect 8 for 8 meaning that manufacturing is growing.

The PMI, their baseline that they use to measure growth, their baseline reading, if it's above, just for the audience, if a reading comes in above 50, it indicates there's growth.

And you're seeing that with business activity and production.

You're seeing that with new orders, especially new orders often commonly viewed as sort of the engine that drives manufacturing, if you will.

How do you sort of, and this isn't just to ask you about the ISM data, I mean, but just with sort of that as a backdrop or an example, How are you viewing, excuse me, sort of the strength that we're seeing at the moment as beneficial to LTL?

I think it's awesome.

as are parts of the industrial space that we see with sort of the manufacturing economy.

And if we are now to industrials, if we are permanently in this above 50 for the ISM measure and rising, that tends to be a sweet spot for industrials as a sector and parts that are more geared towards manufacturing, like manufacturing machinery and transportation.

Instead of advancing CapEx, they're actually cutting CapEx.

And that's usually a good thing when margins are at trough because they recognize the problem.

If I look at some of the AMT data, the company, you know, the Association for Manufacturing Technology, who's the sponsor of IMTS.

If I look at the Japanese machine tool orders from their big trade groups, I mean, looks like their orders are somewhere in the you know 30 to 50 percent up in this quarter now some of the rumors from and you hear some of the ceos these japanese companies saying some of this is the pre-ordering because of data centers and everything in that big market that's driving stuff so maybe it's not characteristic as a whole but The ISM data for the Institute of Supply Chain Management, their purchasing managers index is sitting up north of 50, somewhere, what, 54, 53.

So there's expansion in manufacturing,

which I would hope would mean a great thing for the 3D printing

How about you?

I will be there.

I'll say just quickly to you, Danny, just on that ISM data.

I do think there's been a lot of good growth in manufacturing in the U.S.

This is really obscure, guys, but I drew my attention.

This is the ISM Services monthly reports going back to 1999 because that's when they started coming out.

And what you have here is the red line is employment and the blue line is new orders.

Now, the reason this caught my attention is that new orders is what's driving this economy right now in a big way because new orders is basically capital spending.

When that blue line shot up, employment went nowhere over that period.

And we know what happened to the stock market after that.

Then again, if you look at 2021 and that bull, at the end of that 2021 period, new orders had shot through the roof, but employment ISM services went down.

And we know what happened in 2022.

It's hurting small businesses.

ISM manufacturing, same damn thing.

ISM services, same damn thing.

Every economic data point you look at right now is, and these are August prints, which captures some of this spike, but not The big, you know, kind of final portion here where we went from, you know, 83 up to 93 and potentially kind of touching that $100 level pretty soon.

Inflation is sticky.

And PPI is often a leading indicator for CPI.

So again, if you look at the leading indicators for CPI, you do have ISM services, which is about six months ahead of time, right? There's some cost of goods inside ISM surveys.

Then you have PPI.

And then of course, CPI.