U.S., Canadian Metals Shipments Declined In May

Connecting the Dots monitors all major economic announcements in the United States and Canada, but MSCI 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 Economic Pulse.

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

• The MSCI Metals Activity Report (MAR) for the month of May 2024 revealed that steel and aluminum shipments decreased across the board compared to the same period in 2023. Specifically, U.S. service center steel shipments fell 5.6 percent from May 2023 to May 2024 while shipments of aluminum products declined 7.2 percent year-over-year. Canadian service center steel shipments decreased by 9.5 percent between May 2023 and May 2024 and shipments of aluminum products fell by 5.5 percent from the same month in 2023.
• U.S. industrial production rose 0.9 percent in May. Manufacturing output was up 0.9 percent after declining in the previous two months while the index for mining increased 0.3 percent. A third component, the index for utilities, advanced 1.6 percent. At 103.3 percent of its 2017 average, total industrial production in May 2024 was 0.4 percent higher than its level from one year earlier.
• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s manufacturing index rose to -6 in June from -15.6 in May, indicating improvement while remaining in contraction territory. The volume of shipped orders improved, but employment and work hours continued to contract. The survey contained some hopeful news, however. The reading for future business conditions, or what manufacturers expect to see in six months, rose 16 points to +30.1, its highest level in more than two years. Read the full report here. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, meanwhile, the overall reading for manufacturing sector in its region fell slightly in June, but remained positive. The indexes for shipments, employment, and new orders remained negative while future activity indicators remained positive, but still suggested less widespread expectations for overall growth over the next six months.
• The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the United States fell by 0.5 percent in May 2024 to 101.2 (2016=100), following a 0.6 percent decline in April. Over the six-month period between November 2023 and May 2024, the LEI fell by two percent, which actually was an improvement from a somewhat significant contraction over the previous six months. The decline was driven primarily by a drop in new orders, weak consumer sentiment about future business conditions, and a lower number of building permits.
• The number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits for the first time stood at 238,000 during the week that ended June 15, a number that was down 5,000 from the week before. Averaged over the past four weeks, first-time claims rose to 232,750, an increase from the previous week’s average. In all, nearly 1.83 million people claimed jobless benefits during the week that ended June 8.
• In other economic news: the number of new homes under construction in the United States fell 5.5 percent between April 2024 and May 2024 and 19.3 percent between May 2023 and May 2024; Canadian retail sales advanced 0.7 percent to $66.8 billion in April due to increased sales in seven of nine subsectors; and existing home sales in the United States fell 0.9 percent between April and May and 2.8 percent year-over-year.