Record auto sales may be less about a stronger economy and more about auto lending practices, according to recent data by Fitch Ratings. Auto loans given to borrowers with lower credit scores, called subprime loans, have resulted in an alarming rate of auto loan defaults. Seriously delinquent subprime car loans rose above five percent in […]
The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey for March rose sharply to the first positive reading in seven months. The index gained 15.2 points to register 12.4. The index for new orders jumped 21 points to 15.7, returning to growth status, while shipments climbed 20 points. Both unfilled orders and deliver times improved in March, […]
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey recorded its first positive reading since July of 2015. The March general business conditions index rose 17 points to 0.6 bolstered by increases in new orders and shipments. New orders jumped 21 points to 9.6 after several months of decline. Shipments surged 25 points to register 13.9 Survey results suggest […]
Steel Market Update received a number of comments regarding our “Dirty Little Secret” article published last week. The first comment comes from Lawrence Cox of McCanch Performance Consulting and formerly with National Steel. Mr. Cox was the individual who was carrying on a debate with Dan DiMicco on LinkedIn. He told SMU: “Nearly every slab […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2007 through January 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday in their analysis of non-farm employment that 242,000 jobs were added in February, up from 172,000 in January, December and January were revised up by a total of 30,000. More detail on this report is included at the end of this piece. The three month moving […]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has now got their date base for the GDP of each state up and running and last week published data from Q1 2005 through Q3 2015. Looking ahead the data will be published quarterly and is reported in chained 2009 dollars seasonally adjusted. We at SMU plan to analyze […]
The Renco Group will retake two RG Steel pension funds back from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., ending a three year lawsuit. The deal is only the second time in PBGC’s history that a terminated pension plan was restored to an employer. The PBGC is an entity that insures multi-employer pension plans and protects the […]
Factory orders for manufactured goods grew 1.6 percent in January, following a 2.9 percent decrease in December and showing the largest increase since June. Durable goods orders rose 4.7 percent led by transportation equipment orders that were up 11.4 percent in January. Nondurable goods dropped 1.4 percent to $226.8 billion. Factory orders came in below […]
The Chicago Business Barometer surprised economists with an 8 point tumble to 47.6 in February after increasing to 55.6 in January. Sharp declines in production in new orders contributed to the weaker readings. Economists expected a milder decline to 53; a reading below 50 indicates a contraction in business activity. As new orders dropped sharply, […]
The U.S. manufacturing sector in February remained in contraction for the fifth consecutive month according to the latest Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. The PMI did better than expected by economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays who predicted a headline index of 48 and 47.5, respectively. The February PMI increased 1.3 percentage […]
Durable goods in January rose 4.9 percent in January, reversing a December’s plunge of 4.6 and perhaps indicating stabilization for U.S. manufacturing. The January jump was the biggest monthly gain since March 2015. Orders rose for all major categories of the industrial goods but especially for autos and aircraft. The chart below, depicting the three […]
Consumer confidence fell from 97.8 in January to 92.2 in February following improvements in December and January. The three month moving average (3MMA) declined from 95.6 in January to 95.4 in February and therefore obliterated the single month decline which is the way we prefer to look at data such as this which is quite […]
Currency markets have been anything but stable since our last update on January 25th and this shows up clearly in our examination of the currencies of the steel trading nations. Expectations of four rate hikes by the FOMC seem to have flown out the window. On February 3rd Josh Brown wrote, “Perhaps the biggest headline […]
The following is the Chicago Federal Reserve statement followed by our own graphical analysis. The CFNAI is an excellent reality check for much of the economic analysis that we routinely provide in The Steel Market Update and is also a reasonably good predictor of the direction of steel demand with a six to nine month […]
Metalforming companies in the U.S. and Canada are expecting slightly improved business conditions in the next three months. Surveyed members of the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) reported average daily shipping levels in February were higher than three months ago and anticipate steady order activity for the next three months. Companies reporting workers on short time […]
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The index had an all-time high of 107.9108 in December 2014 but on a month over month basis has declined for nine of the last thirteen months. January was a welcome respite with an increase of 0.92 percent, which is huge, and […]
After a generally positive performance in 2015, the Architectural Billings Index started the year with a slip to 49.6 in January from December’s reading of 51.3. A score above 50 indicates growth in design services and below 50 indicates a decline. AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker called January “rocky” but noted “the fundamentals are mostly […]
Steel workers and chief executives from 17 European member states took to the streets in Brussels on Monday to protest the dumping of steel products and granting of market economy status to China. Market status would only worsen the European steel crisis, claimed protestors, and cost tens of thousands of jobs. EUROFER, the European Steel […]
On Sunday Steel Market Update published an article about the Carrier announcement that they would be moving their manufacturing and distribution facilities from Indianapolis, Indiana to Mexico. The announcement got the attention of Donald Trump who mentioned it during the debates on Saturday. Our article and the news also got the attention of a number […]
Business activity continued to decline for New York manufacturers in the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The general business conditions index picked up 3 points registering -16.6, its seventh consecutive month in contraction. The index was weaker than economist estimates of 10.0 to 10.50. Most indexes in the survey remained in contraction in February but […]
Figure 1 shows published data for the growth of Chinese GDP, industrial production and consumer prices through the fourth quarter of 2015. The GDP and industrial production portions of this graph are three month moving averages. The growth of GDP was 6.8 percent in the 4th quarter, and decelerating to its slowest pace since the […]
This report summarizes total steel supply annually from 2007 through 2015 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
The long awaited customs bill is headed to the Senate for approval on Thursday, Feb. 11. If Senate approves the conference report of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (H.R. 644) it will move on to the White House for the President’s signature. The bill is designed, among other things, to streamline the flow […]
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) Board of Directors this week approved the Institute’s 2016 Public Policy Agenda during its meeting in Washington, D.C. The Agenda outlines aggressive pro-manufacturing policy strategies to guide advocacy for the upcoming year and highlights the importance of the steel industry to the U.S. economy and […]
The following article is normally reserved for our Premium members only, but we felt it would be a good one to share with all of our readers. If you are interested in upgrading to a Premium membership or would like to trial it, contact our office at (800) 432 3475 or info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. The Q1 2016 […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday in their analysis of non-farm employment that 151,000 jobs were added in January, down from 262,000 in December. According to the Wall Street Breakfast, “consensus had called for 190,000 jobs to be added, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 5 percent. Traders in interest rate […]
Washington, D.C. – The Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) Board of Directors today announced that Tracy Porter, Senior Vice President of Commercial Metals Company (CMC) and President of CMC Americas, was elected as Chairman of SMA’s Board of Directors for 2016-2017. In July 2010, Mr. Porter was appointed Senior Vice President of CMC and President of […]
Factory orders continued to slide downwards in December, decreasing $13.5 billion or 2.9 percent to $456.5 billion according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Orders have been down four of the last five months and follow a decrease of 0.7 percent in November. Orders for transportation equipment, in particular commercial aircraft, led the […]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the first estimate of Q4 2015 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts on Monday. The annualized growth rate in the first estimate of the fourth quarter was 0.69 percent, down from 1.99 percent, in the 3rd quarter and down from 3.91 percent in Q2. Normally […]