Baffle 'em with bullshit surveys continue...

For the PMIs, a panel of executives of companies across a wide spectrum of industries respond to questions about production, orders, employment, backlog, prices, etc. Today’s PMIs asked about changes in those categories in May from April. So these are month-to-month changes. Executives have three choices in how they can respond: increased (=1), no change (=0), declined (=-1). There are no dollars involved. The total is figured in percent. 50% means no change: an equal number of executives said “increased” and “decreased.” When more executives say “increased” than “decreased,” the value is over 50%, and the index shows “growth.”