Oxford Monthly Industry Briefings and Economic Market Indicator Reports Updated

Oxford’s Monthly Industry Briefings for May have been released and are available on the website. These reports contain the latest developments for eleven major industries around the globe with short industry briefs provided by Oxford Economics. These two-to-three-page briefs include a short-written summary, output/trend graphs, and an output table. 

NFPA’s Econ and Market Indicators (EMI) report has been updated for April. The EMI report pulls together data from multiple sources to provide the latest trends for: 

• Customer Markets (U.S. Census Bureau) 
• Economic Indicators (U.S. Census Bureau) 
• Industrial Production (Federal Reserve) 
• Capacity Utilization (Federal Reserve) 
• Producer Price Index (Bureau of Labor Statistics) 

Highlights between the three on a few industries focusing on the United States include the following: 

• Construction 
  • Total US housing starts increased in April by 5.7% m/m according to Oxford’s latest briefing. This sector’s rebound from last month’s big drop is being credited to a 30.6% growth in multi-family units starts whereas single family starts were relatively stagnant with a 0.4% decline.  
  • As shown in the EMI report, total construction spending: manufacturing in the United States appears to be slowing down as it increased slightly m/m in April by .9%. Both the 3/12 and 12/12 rate of change for total construction spending have steadily been declining throughout Q1 of 2024.  

• Motor Vehicles 
  • Oxford reports that their US industry output motor vehicles value added index fell -3.64% m/m in April. US selling rate for light vehicles increased between March and April; however, factors including rising costs of automotive repair are expected to drag on automotive demand moving forward.  
  • The EMI reports that automobile, light truck, and utility vehicle industrial production fell – 4.1% m/m in April, however, it is still up 7.4% from a year ago.  

• Pharmaceutical 
  • Improved demand in domestic and foreign markets is pushing growth in the chemicals and pharmaceuticals sector for the US, according to Oxford. The sector reportedly grew 0.3% m/m in April and saw a 0.6% q/q growth in Q1.  
  • The updated EMI report shows that pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing shipments decreased m/m in April by 2.4% but appear to be trending positively overall.  

Oxford Monthly Industry Briefings can be accessed at this link: https://nfpahub.com/stats/reports-data/global-market-reports-forecasts/industry-briefings/  

The EMI report can be accessed at this link: https://nfpahub.com/reports/econ-market-indicator/. An excel file with all the raw data is also available to download for internal analysis. Members can view individual series and apply different calculations such as moving averages and rates of change. 

Questions? Contact Cecilia Bart at cbart@nfpa.com or 414-259-2027.