Years ago…like 20, if you can believe that…I once asked legendary bond king Bill Gross, then at PIMCO, if he could use but one economic indicator as a predictor of future activity what would it be? Steel production, he offered, which I got a kick out of because I have tracked U.S. steel production since 1990, as listed weekly in Barron’s.
I imagine Mr. Gross would give an entirely different answer today, though I’m not sure what he’d select. That said it’s been a long time since I looked at steel myself and so I present the following which is a bit disturbing. The recent trend has not been good. Granted, this doesn’t take into consideration the amount of steel imported, but as a broad-based measure of economic activity it can’t be ignored.
2/6/15 – 4/10/15
1782
1769
1760
1716
1657
1645
1623
1639
1628
1600
2/7/14 – 4/11/14
1804
1839
1845
1831
1861
1840
1828
1885
1820
1812
2/8/13 – 4/12/13
1801
1822
1814
1843
1857
1828
1785
1809
1819
1858
2/3/12 – 4/6/12
1897
1907
1929
1942
1930
1947
1959
1913
1947
1900
2015 sure looks ugly, sports fans. We’ll see if this is a meaningful indicator with the release of GDP figures for the first and second quarters.
