February manufacturing report for US

February manufacturing report for US

The US Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released its February manufacturing report, which shows that prices of various steel products continued to climb through the first half of February. According to the report, stainless steel, steel, steel coated sheet and various forms of steel products all experienced price increases during the first six weeks of 2005. On the other hand, cold rolled steel, hot rolled steel and scrap prices fell last week. Overall factory production growth in the US slowed in February. The ISM national index shows that manufacturing production fell 1.1 points from to 56.4 to 55.3 in January. Analysts had predicted a 0.6 point increase to 57.0. ISM says that the overall manufacturing industry continued its growth of the last 21 months, pointing out that an index over 50 indicates that the manufacturing industry is generally expanding. The new orders index increased slightly from 55.8 to 56.5. The primary metals industry also reported an increase in orders. New export orders index grew 0.5 points from 56.9 to 57.4, while the imports index decreased 0.4 points from 61.1 to 60.7.