U.S. And Canadian Steel, Aluminum Shipments Down In November

Connecting the Dots monitors all major economic announcements in the United States and Canada, but the Metals Service Center Institute also offers industrial metals industry-specific data products that provide much deeper analysis and insight. Visit MSCI’s website and click on industry data to learn more about our Metals Activity Report (MAR), Momentum Monitors, and Macroeconomic Current.

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

• According to MSCI’s MAR, steel and aluminum shipments in the United States and Canada were down sharply between November 2023 and November 2024. Specifically, U.S. service center steel shipments fell 7.7 percent year-over-year while aluminum shipments dropped 15.1 percent. In Canada, service center steel shipments were down 17.3 percent between November 2023 and November while aluminum shipments fell 20.8 percent.
• The Canadian economy expanded 0.3 percent in October 2024 after growing by 0.2 percent in September. After four consecutive monthly declines, goods-producing industries expanded 0.9 percent, with the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sectors leading the way. Read the full report at this link.
• According to the Institute of Supply Management’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI), economic activity in the U.S. manufacturing sector contracted in December for the ninth consecutive month and the 25th time in the last 26 months. New orders and production did strengthen, however, but the employment index fell. Read the full report at this link.
• The S&P Global Canada manufacturing PMI rose to 52.2 in December from 52.0 the month before. It was the fourth straight month of growth. Growth was supported by gains in employment, output, and new orders.
• Regional manufacturing readings from the United States continued to show a mixed picture in December. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond reported its composite manufacturing index ticked up slightly to -10 in December from -14 in November, but shipments and employment were relatively flat and new orders improved only slightly. Read the full report at this link. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said Texas factory activity improved. The bank’s general business activity index rose six points to +3.4, its first positive reading since April 2022, while the bank’s production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, improved to +3.9 from a near-zero reading in November. Other measures of manufacturing activity were mixed, however. The new orders index shot up 11 points to -0.9, but the capacity utilization and shipments indexes both remained in negative territory. Read the full report at this link.
• The number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits for the first time stood at 211,000 during the week that ended Dec. 28, a figure that was down by 9,000 from the week before. Averaged over the past four weeks, first-time claims fell to 223,500. In all, nearly 1.844 million people claimed jobless benefits during the week that ended Dec. 21, a number that was down by 52,000 from the week before.
• The Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence fell 8.1 points to 104.7 in December. The decline was due mostly to consumers’ increasingly negative feelings about the future of the economy. Indeed, the board’s expectations index fell 12.6 points while the reading for respondents’ present situation was down by only 1.2 points.
• In other economic news: the number of new homes sold in the United States expanded 5.9 from October 2024 to November 2024 and 8.7 percent from November 2023 to November 2024.