March's miss in Chicago PMI is now a dim and distant aberation as April and now May's Purchasing Managers Index surged to 65.5 - just shy of its Oct 2013 highs. As champgen corks fly and the world celebrates "we're back baby" - we hesitate to burst that exuberant bubble and note that production fell, the employment sub-index fell below its 12-month average (but that doesn't matter, right) and prices paid surged by their most in 5 years (that awkward margin-consuming inflation stoking thing).
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As MNI concludes:
“We’ve had false dawns before, but the long run of strength in the survey, coupled with other more positive economic data, suggests growth is becoming more entrenched.”
Yep - no false dawn this time... we are sure of it.