Canadian Manufacturing Sales Increased Early This Year

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:

• Canadian manufacturing sales increased 1.7 percent between December 2024 and January 2025 and three percent between January 2024 and January 2025. The monthly improvement was due mostly to an 11.1 percent increase in motor vehicle industry sales and a 4.7 percent jump in sales from the petroleum and coal product subsector. Chemical product sales fell 7.4 percent, meanwhile.
• U.S. wholesale inventories rose by 0.8 percent from December 2024 to January 2025 while sales dipped 1.3 percent. The inventory-to-sales ratio rose to 1.33 from 1.3 the previous month. Wholesale sales in Canada, meanwhile, rose 1.2 percent between December and January and 2.7 percent year-over-year. The largest increases for the month came from the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories subsector, where sales expanded 3.7 percent, and the building material and supplies subsector, where sales were up 3.5 percent.
• According to Chief Executive magazine’s CEO Confidence Index, manufacturing leaders are feeling less optimistic. Specifically, the index’s reading for future business conditions was at 4.7 in February out of a possible 10. That reading was down 30 percent from 6.8 in January. The current conditions index dropped to 4.6 compared with 5.1 for other industries. Read the full report at this link.
• The National Federation of Independent Business’s (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index fell by 2.1 points in February to 100.7. February was the fourth consecutive month the reading was above the 51-year average of 98, but the reading also was 4.4 points below its most recent peak of 105.1, which was hit in December. Additionally, the NFIB’s uncertainty index rose four points to 104, the second highest reading on record. Read the full report at this link.
• The number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits for the first time ever was 220,000 during the week that ended March 8, a number that was down by 2,000 from the week before. Averaged over the past four weeks, first-time claims rose by 1,500 to 226,000. In all, nearly 1.87 million people claimed unemployment benefits during the week that ended March 1, a number that was down by 27,000 from the week before. In other employment related news, there were about 7.7 million jobs open in the United States in January.
• In other economic news: real average hourly earnings for U.S. employees increased 0.1 percent from January to February; the U.S. producer price index was flat between January 2025 and February 2025, but rose 3.2 percent between February 2024 and February 2025; and the U.S. consumer price index was up 0.2 percent from January and February and 2.8 percent year-over-year.