The Institute for Supply Management reported its purchasing managers index (PMI) for the month of July showing a handy gain. The index rose 1.8 points to 57.1% from the 55.3% reported a month ago. Bloomberg was calling for the index to come in only marginally higher at a reading of 56%. What should stand out the most is that this was the single best nationwide manufacturing reading going back to April of 2011.

Friday’s ISM Manufacturing report goes along with what was seen from the July gains of the Empire State and Philly Fed readings. And who said America doesn’t manufacture anything anymore?

Another boost was a large gain in new orders, which rose to 63.4 in July. That is all the way up from 58.9 in June, making this the best reading for all of 2014. Production rose by 1.2 points to 61.2 in July.

The ISM further went on to show that there was a large gain in employment growth during July. This sub-sector of the PMI report was up 5.4 points from June with a new reading of 58.2. That is the strongest reading in roughly three years.

Some of the other issues seen in the report were as follows:

• Delivery times slowed.
• Inventories were lower.
• Backlog saw a small drop.
• Input prices accelerated only moderately.

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