Steel, Aluminum Shipments From Canada, United States Slowed In December

Connecting the Dots monitors all major economic statistics in the United States and Canada, but MSCI also has industrial metals industry-specific data products that provide much deeper analysis and insight. Visit our website and click on Industry Data to learn more about our Metals Activity Report (MAR), Momentum Monitors, and Economic Opportunity and Risk Tracker.

Meanwhile, here are the major headlines from the last week:

• According to MSCI’s Metals Activity Report (MAR), aluminum and steel shipments from North American countries continued to soften in December 2021. Specifically, U.S. service center steel shipments fell 6.4 percent from December 2020 to December 2021. U.S. aluminum shipments slowed to a 5.3 percent year-over-year increase. Canadian service center steel shipments fell 14.3 percent between December 2020 and December 2021 while shipments of aluminum products declined 4.7 percent.
• U.S. industrial production declined 0.1 percent in December. Manufacturing output fell 0.3 percent while utilities’ production was down 1.5 percent. Mining output advanced two percent. For the fourth quarter as a whole, total industrial production rose at an annual rate of four percent.
• Canadian manufacturing sales rose 2.6 percent to $63.1 billion as sales rose in 18 of the 21 industries it tracks. Overall, sales of primary metal products increased 5.8 percent to a record $5.8 billion in November. Sales for the petroleum and coal industry also hit a record after climbing 3.7 percent to $7.2 billion. Read the full report here.
• S. import prices declined 0.2 percent in December after rising 0.7 percent in November while prices for U.S. exports fell 1.8 percent in December following a 0.8-percent advance in November. Read the full report here.
• According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 230,000 people filed for federal unemployment benefits during the week that ended January 8, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week’s level. The four-week moving average also rose. The number of individuals who continued to receive benefits fell to 1.559 million during the week that ended January 1 and is now at its lowest level since June 2, 1973. The four-week moving average of continuing claims also fell.
• In other economic news: real hourly U.S. earnings were up 0.1 percent between November 2021 and December 2021, but fell 2.4 percent between December 2020 and December 2021; the U.S. producer price index increased 0.2 percent for the month of December 2021 and 9.7 percent year-over-year; U.S. consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month and seven percent (the highest rate of increase since 1982) year-over-year.