US: Manufacturing sector expands in August

In August, the ISM manufacturing index rose back into expansionary territory for the first time since January 2008. The headline index rose from 48.9 to 52.9, while the consensus was looking for a figure of 50.5. The improvement was led by new orders (64.9 from 55.3) and production (61.9 from 57.9), but also backlog of orders (52.5 from 50.0), supplier deliveries (57.1 from 52.0), inventories (34.4 from 33.5), employment (46.4 from 45.6) and new export orders (55.5 from 50.5) rose. Customer