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February 2, 2025

U.S. Economy Expands While Canadian GDP Contracts

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:

  • The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily driven by a 4.2 percent surge in consumer spending. A slowdown in inventory growth held back the overall figure, however, which was down from 3.1 percent growth in the third quarter. Projected growth for 2025 remains above two percent. Read the full report at this link.
  • The Canadian economy contracted 0.2 percent in November, the largest monthly contraction since December 2023, after rising 0.3 percent in October 2024. Overall, there were broad based declines in 13 of 20 sectors with growth in goods-producing industries falling 0.6 percent. The mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction, and utilities industries drove most of November’s decline.
  • According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, manufacturing activity picked up in Texas in January. The production index, a key measure of manufacturing conditions, rose seven points to +12.2, while new orders index rose six points to +7.7, its highest level since April 2022, and the capacity utilization and shipments readings rose to 5.0 and 8.7, respectively, after near-zero readings in December. Perceptions of broader business conditions also continued to improve in January. Read the full report at this link. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond announced that manufacturing activity in the Central Atlantic of the United States region remained soft in January. The composite manufacturing index increased to -4 in January from -10 in December. Of its three component indexes, shipments edged up to -9, new orders increased to -4, and the employment reading rose to 3 from -8. The future indexes for shipments and new orders decreased however, but did remain solidly in positive territory. Read that report at this link.
  • The number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits for the first time ever was 207,000 during the week that ended Jan. 25, a number that was down by 16,000 from the week before. Averaged over the past four weeks, first-time claims increased to 212,500. In all, nearly 1.858 million people claimed unemployment benefits during the week that ended Jan. 18.
  • In other economic news: the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell 5.4 points to 104.1 in January, reflecting diminished optimism about current and future conditions; U.S. personal incomes increased 0.4 percent in December while personal consumption expenditures, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation, rose 0.7 percent; and the National Association of Realtors said the number of pending homes sales in the United States, a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, fell 5.5 percent to 74.2 in December. Year-over-year, pending transactions declined five percent. Read that report at this link.

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