Kyle Dahms, analyst at National Bank of Canada, points out that today’s Manufacturing Sales showed another monthly gain and the report included positive revisions.
Key Quotes:
“Manufacturing shipments rose 1.4% m/m in March to C$57.1 billion. Sales expanded in 13 of the 21 broad industries surveyed including transportation equipment (+1.5%), primary metal manufacturing (+4.2%) and fabricated metal products (+4.6%). These increases were more than enough to offset a decline in shipments for the machinery (-1.7%), chemical (-0.9%) and petroleum/coal products (-0.3%) categories.”
“If the effect of price changes are removed, total factory sales rose 0.6% on a monthly basis.”
“The Canadian factory report came in stronger than expected in March and follows an upwardly revised surge in the prior month. Increases were fairly widespread with gains from primary metal and metal product manufacturing providing a sizeable portion of the rise.”
“Although growth for the Canadian economy is set to slightly slowdown in the first quarter, the manufacturing sector will still provide some lift.”
“We expect the manufacturing sector to continue contributing to growth in 2018 assuming positive developments in NAFTA negotiations.”
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