US services sector growth drops to two-year low in June

Growth in the crucial American services sector fell last month to its weakest pace in nearly two years as business activity, hiring and new orders all declined, a private survey showed Wednesday.

The result put US services industries -- a central driver of the world’s largest economy -- down for three of the last four months.

But analysts noted that the level still indicated expansion and cautioned against reading too much gloom into a single month’s data.

The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index fell 1.8 points to 55.1 percent, undershooting economists’ forecasts to touch its lowest reading since July of 2017.

ISM index for the far smaller manufacturing economy has meanwhile steadily weakened.

Anthony Nieves, chair of ISM’s services sector survey, the report was not necessarily bad news.