allmetalworking > News & Topics >Metalworking Business Index: September MBI at 59.4 – Growth on Upward Trend
Metalworking Business Index: September MBI at 59.4 – Growth on Upward Trend
Author: Editor of Gardnerweb
Source From: Gardnerweb
Posted Date: 2011-10-11
The Metalworking Business Index (MBI) is created from a monthly survey sent to manufacturing executives in the durable goods industries. The MBI is a diffusion index based on 50.0; it functions in the same way as the ISM’s PMI. When the MBI is above 50.0, the metalworking industry is expanding; when the MBI is below 50.0 the industry is contracting. The total MBI is a weighted average of the subindices for new orders, production, employees, inventories, exports, and supplier deliveries.

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Source: Gardner Research 2011
With a reading of 59.4, the MBI showed that the metalworking industry grew faster in September and has been on an upward trend since April indicating that growth has been accelerating.
Sign up to participate in the Metalworking Business Index (MBI) at gardnerweb.com/mbi.
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With a reading of 59.4, the MBI showed that the metalworking industry grew faster in September. Since April, the MBI has been on an upward trend, indicating that growth in the metalworking industry has been accelerating. For additional MBI information, go to gardnerweb.com/mbi/MBIResults.htm.
The most significant contributor to the slightly stronger growth was the employment sub-index, which moved to 70.1 from 58.3. While there have been ups and downs, employment has grown at a very strong and fairly consistent rate since September 2009.
After a one month contraction in July, possibly due to seasonal factors, production has grown faster each of the last two months. But, with the continuing growth of new orders it does not appear that production is growing fast enough as backlogs continue to grow faster.
Despite the dollar at its lowest of the last 40 years, exports have been mostly flat since early 2010.
While material prices are still growing, the rate of growth has slowed noticeably since February 2011.
Future business expectations were more positive in September after last month’s dip, which was probably due to Congress’ debt ceiling debate.
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