ChatGPT-4o Case Study: Comparing US Manufacturing PMI Data from S&P Global and the ISM

Many of us regularly pore over economic data as we research topics for market reviews. For example, I recently looked at the S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI for a particular month. A couple of weeks later, though, the ISM US Manufacturing PMI for the same month was published. This made me wonder: what are the differences between the two indices? To quickly compare them, I asked ChatGPT to create me a table, using just two prompts:

·??????? Give me a table showing the difference between the US manufacturing PMIs produced each month by S&P Global and the ISM, including what both surveys measure, when they are released during the month, their sample size, which is the more credible measure, any sectoral biases within them etc.

·??????? Are there any more rows that should be included to make this comparison table even more interesting/instructive?

The table that ChatGPT produced looked great. However, how could I then move it from ChatGPT into Word? Answer? I just asked ChatGPT-4o how to do it!

ChatGPT told me to:

-??????????? “use Excel as an intermediary”, so I did that. Unfortunately, though, I was then unable to autofit the columns to replicate the nice style of the original table! So, it was back to ChatGPT for guidance, whose next tip was to…

-??????????? “unwrap the text in the cells within Excel”. That worked a treat, and it was then just a case of simply cutting and pasting the table into Word.

That resulted in the impressive output below. There we have it – a useful comparison of the two indices!

Additional Notes:

• S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI: Offers early and final insights into manufacturing activity with a broad coverage that may slightly bias towards larger companies and exporters.
• ISM US Manufacturing PMI: Provides a single, highly influential report that reflects US domestic manufacturing activity and is often used in economic forecasting and policy-making.

So, what did I learn about prompting?

·??????? It is very easy to quickly create a useful comparison table using AI tools. This whole exercise took me under 10 minutes!

·??????? As well as including your own rows, you can ask the AI model to suggest its own

·??????? The AI model will even help you format the table, so you can use it in other applications

·??????? As ever, fact-checking of the AI model’s output is crucial!