Key findings

• Banking, real estate and insurance activity all speed up in January
• Machinery, autos and technology equipment are fastest growing areas of manufacturing
• Tourism & recreation remains rooted to bottom of global sector league table

The latest Global Sector PMI™ data from IHS Markit signalled a notable pick-up in financial services activity in January. Overall activity in Financials rose at the fastest rate since August 2014, moving it top of the eight broad categories monitored.

At the detailed level, Banks registered the second-fastest rate of growth in nearly ten years, closely followed by Real Estate where activity rose the most since January 2016. Meanwhile, Insurance was the third-fastest expanding services sector, and fifth overall. The fourth component of the Financials group of sectors, Other Financials (including consumer finance, investment services and specialised financial services) weighed on overall growth, however, with a slight reduction in activity.

Service sectors also topped the rankings for output expectations in January. The strongest sentiment was in Real Estate, followed by Banks, Software & Services, Industrial Services and Insurance, respectively.

The strongest-growing manufacturing sectors in January were Machinery & Equipment (ranked third overall), Automobiles & Auto Parts (fourth) and Technology Equipment (sixth). Highlighting the general out-performance of manufacturing globally relative to services, only one out of seven sectors to record lower output was located in manufacturing, namely construction materials.

Tourism & recreation remained the worst-performing sector in January, although the rate of decline was the slowest since last October. Tourism & Recreation has been the bottom- or second-bottom ranked global sector every month since March 2020.