vs July's reading of 43.6 and against expectations for a modest rise of about 44.0 in August. There was also a sharp rebound in the two leading sub-indexes, including NAPM's new orders index, which jumped 6.8 percentage points on the month, to 53.1 after 13 months of negative growth. The production index rose 5.8 percentage points to 52.2 after eight months below 50.