For the first time in almost five years, the nation's services sector — including restaurants, travel, banking, construction and retail — contracted in January, stoking rising worries of a recession.
The Institute for Supply Management's report, released Tuesday, shook the stock market while bond prices surged. The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index all fell in morning trading.
"This is an absolute collapse of this index," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight.
The Institute for Supply Management reported that its index of service sector business activity declined to 44.6 in January from a revised reading of 54.4 in December. Economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR had expected a slight slowdown but had still forecast growth, with a median estimate for the index of 53.
A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while below 50 indicates contraction. It was the first time the service sector reading has contracted since March 2003.
The consensus among survey respondents was that the services sector, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy, has "come to the end of a long-term period of growth," said Anthony Nieves, chairman of the Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing business survey committee.
Gault said that in March 2001, the beginning of the last recession, the index had a break-even reading of 50 and during that recession, the index hung around 48 or 49 — several points higher than January's reading.
"This is a very bad report," Gault said, in terms of convincing economists that we may be in or headed for recession. "I think it will be tipping plenty of people over the edge."
Price increases have slowed while costs are up, said Nieves, who is also senior vice president for supply management at Hilton Hotels Corp. Survey respondents cited recession fears taking hold, high energy prices, and worries over inflation and the housing market.
"It gives me a dose of reality that this sector, which has been resilient for some time, now it has become susceptible to all the influences in the economy," Nieves said.
ISM said only three service industries reported growth, while 14 showed contraction.
Tuesday's report was issued roughly an hour earlier than its usual 10 a.m. release because of what ISM called "a possible breach of information."
A spokeswoman for the trade group said it decided late Monday to release the index early, before U.S. markets opened on Tuesday, because someone who was familiar with the contents had inadvertently made a comment about it on Monday night.
"It was a slip of the tongue," spokeswoman Andrea Waas said. "The person doesn't think the other individual had a clue."
The Securities and Exchange Commission did not immediately have any comment on the matter.