A lot of data for a short holiday week

Global manufacturing continues its strong run

The global economy just keeps on running in high gear. For the United States, today the ISM Manufacturing Index climbed to 59.7 for December, well above the 58.2 in November. (Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a reading of 58.2 as well. In this index anything above 50 indicates that a sector is expanding.) This puts the index at the highest level in three months.