Quarterly Market Report
Comments from purchasing executives in the latest PMI survey reflect continued manufacturing strength, but expanding at much lower levels.
One month does not a trend make, but February’s Producer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows incremental increases in the value of metal-cutting machine tools, metalforming machine tools, fabricated structural metal products, and structural, architectural and pre-engineered metal products.
Purchasing managers in March reported new orders and production are at strong levels and that companies are hiring to support further output.
The bullishness of the three-month outlook for new orders among surveyed metalformers tapered off a bit in October, while the Purchasing Managers Index fell by 1.5 points from September.
