{"id":431414,"date":"2026-06-03T21:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/06\/may-ism-services-index-54-5-vs-53-8-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T21:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T14:00:17","slug":"may-ism-services-index-54-5-vs-53-8-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/06\/may-ism-services-index-54-5-vs-53-8-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"May ISM services index 54.5 vs 53.8 expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Business activity index vs 55.9 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Employment vs 48.0 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">New orders vs 53.5 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Prices paid vs 70.7 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Supplier deliveries vs 56.8 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">\nInventories vs 53.1 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Backlog of orders vs 53.0 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">New export orders vs 52.1 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Imports vs 54.7 prior<\/li>\n<li class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\" index=\"0\">Inventory sentiment vs 55.1 prior<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">Before today&#8217;s report, the ISM services report showed the U.S. services sector remained in expansion through April, though the details were more mixed than the headline suggested. The Services PMI slipped to 53.6 from 54.0 in March, marking the 22nd straight month above the 50 threshold. Business activity improved to 55.9, suggesting current demand remained resilient, but new orders fell sharply to 53.5 from 60.6, indicating that March\u2019s surge may have reflected some front-loading ahead of expected price increases. Employment remained the weak spot, contracting for a second straight month at 48.0, even with some improvement from March\u2019s 45.2 reading.<\/p>\n<p>The inflation signal was harder to dismiss. The prices index held at 70.7, matching the highest reading since October 2022 and staying above 60 for a 17th consecutive month. ISM respondents continued to cite higher oil, fuel, freight, labor and commodity costs, with no commodities listed as down in price. Supplier deliveries also slowed further, while backlogs stayed in expansion for a third month. Overall, the report pointed to a services economy still growing, but with softer forward demand, cautious hiring and persistent cost pressure.<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Business activity index vs 55.9 prior Employment vs 48.0 prior New orders vs 53.5 prior Prices paid vs 70.7 prior Supplier deliveries vs 56.8 prior Inventories vs 53.1 prior Backlog of orders&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}