PMI

What is HCOB Eurozone Manufacturing PMI?

It is a monthly diffusion index of euro-area factory health, compiled by S&P Global. It is often shortened to Manufacturing PMI. Readings run from 0 to 100, where 50.0 means no change from the prior month.

It aggregates survey panels of around 3000 private-sector manufacturers in 8 euro-area countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland and Greece. Panels are stratified by sector and workforce size, and countries combine by manufacturing value added from Eurostat.

The survey belongs to the S&P Global PMI programme of monthly business surveys of carefully selected companies. Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB) is the title sponsor and provides economist comment.

It is not official output, not the wider EU, not services, and not opinion polling, except for a future-activity gauge. The headline Manufacturing PMI does not feed the Composite Output Index; that index uses the Manufacturing Output Index instead.

When is it released and what happens each release?

Responses are collected in the second half of each month and compare direction with the prior month, on a mid-month to mid-month basis.

The final eurozone index appears at 09:00 on the first working day after the reference month, after national releases. An advance flash estimate appears about a week earlier alongside services and composite flashes, using 80 to 90% of final replies.

Each release adds country rankings, output and price gauges plus Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB) comment. Answers never revise; only seasonal factors revise.

What moves HCOB Eurozone Manufacturing PMI?

The headline averages 5 seasonally adjusted parts that track demand, production, jobs, supply chains and stocks. Input prices, output charges, backlogs, purchase quantities, finished-goods stocks, export orders and future activity sit outside the headline.

• New Orders, 30%: captures direction of incoming order books, including export demand.
• Output, 25%: captures factory production volumes versus the prior month.
• Employment, 20%: captures factory workforce numbers versus the prior month.
• Suppliers' Delivery Times, 15%: captures supply tightness through delivery speed; raw index is inverted in headline.
• Stocks of Purchases, 10%: captures pre-production inventory levels versus the prior month.

A reading above 50.0 means expansion versus the prior month, below means contraction, and distance from 50.0 shows the pace of change. One average can hide national splits, with some countries expanding while others shrink.

How is HCOB Eurozone Manufacturing PMI calculated?

1. Weight replies: individual answers are weighted by sector and company-size shares of value added.
2. Country diffusion: each variable index equals the higher share plus 0.5 times the same share.
3. Seasonal adjustment: raw indices are smoothed for recurring calendar effects using the Census X-12 ARIMA method.
4. Eurozone aggregation: country indices combine using national manufacturing annual value added from Eurostat.
5. Headline average: PMI blends 5 parts: 30% orders plus 25% output plus 20% jobs plus 15% inverted deliveries plus 10% stocks. Inversion means 100 minus the raw delivery index.
6. Worked example: with orders 48.0, output 47.0, jobs 49.0, raw deliveries 52.0 and stocks 46.0, inverted deliveries equal 48.0. The blend gives 47.8, below 50.0, so overall contraction from the prior month.

Key point: a fall from 55.0 to 52.5 still means expansion in both months, only slower growth.