3January 2018
3January 2018
HY Corporate Credit
HY Multi Sector,Media. Cable & Satellite
U.S. Economic Trends
The mean and median forecast for U.S. GOP growth is 2O5: in 2018
Domestic steel demand is impacted by several factors tied to industrial activity
including U.S. economic growth, end-market demand and the direction of steel
prices and underlying input costs. U.S. real GDP recorded its highest reading
in two years during the June quarter, a signal that the economy is on solid
footing. More, increasing GDP estimates are a positive directional indicator for
the cyclical steel industry. While there is no perfect corollary for aggregate
demand considering the variety of markets steel serves, we believe analyzing
trends in real GDP, industrial production, capacity utilization, oil production,
construction, automotive production, the Institute for Supply Management's
Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) and Bureau of Labor Statistics' Producer
Price Index (PPI) are helpful directionally in gauging end market expectations.
In Figure 8 we show the American Iron and Steel Institute's (AISI) analysis of
2016 steel shipments by market classification.
[Figure 8: 2016 Steel Shipments by Market Classification
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Shown in Figure 9, U.S. GDP registered its highest reading in two years during
the June quarter signaling the economy is on solid footing. We are encouraged
by the average of 79 Bloomberg analysts' view that GOP will grow YoY in 2018.
Figure 10 and Figure 11 display trends in industrial production (IP) and capacity
utilization (CU), indicators of general industrial activity. IP and CU experienced
a solid rebound in 2017 following a steady trend of negative YoY comparisons.
IP's December 2016 print was the first positive YoY reading (+0.8%) following
20 sequential months of declines and has since experienced 11 consecutive
months of YoY gains. CU underwent a similar trend, registering YoY decreases
for 24 out of 25 months beginning in February 2015 before moving into
positive territory in March 2017 (+0.7% YoY). Since March CU readings have
remained positive for eight consecutive months through October (+1.7% YoY).
[Figure 9: U.S. Real GDP PO SAAR)
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