Economy
December 28, 2016
Manufacturing Update in December 2016
Written by Peter Wright
For the first time this month we will summarize six data sources that describe the state of manufacturing in the US. We have reported on most of these six sources separately in our Steel Market Update publications therefore will be brief in this summary. We don’t expect these data sources to all point in the same direction but our intention in summarizing them in one document is to try to get a consensus between them.
The Industrial Production Index: Figure 1 shows the IP index since January 2000 with the year/year growth. The index declined for all of 2015 through May of 2016 with a small net increase since then (white line). The y/y growth declined at the rate of 1.92 percent in January this year and has since improved to a contraction rate of 0.81 percent. Momentum has been positive every month since July last year.
