An issue that has been broadly discussed over the past year or so is the obvious divergence between soft and hard data in Sweden. In the past week this problem has become more confusing with the Q3 national accounts showing a continued decline in goods output, while recent months' strong performance of PMI has continued.
PMI data in principle relates to the assessed development on a consecutive (month-on-month) basis, which is different from the questionnaire in the NIER business confidence survey that focuses on performance over a rolling three-month period.
Nevertheless, gyration in PMI over time has proven to be a relatively robust (early) indicator of business conditions among goods producers, for instance represented by actual production from a y/y perspective.
Over the past year or so the traditional correlation seems to have collapsed or, in fact, switched sign from positive to negative.
To Read the Entire Report Please Click on the pdf File Below.