Canada: Manufactured goods shipments bounced back in March – NBF

Kyle Dahms, analyst at National Bank Financial, notes that the Canadian manufacturing shipments jumped 2.1% in March to C$58.0 billion, following a - 0.2% decline in the prior month.

Key Quotes

“Sales were up in 12 of the 21 broad industries surveyed including transportation equipment (+4.5%, helped by increases in motor vehicles and aerospace products), petroleum/coal products (+8.2%) and primary metals (+5.3%).”

“’The rise in these industries were more than enough to offset declines for paper manufacturing (-2.2%), electrical equipment (-4.6%) and plastics/rubber products (-1.3%).”

“With the price effect removed, total factory sales rose 1.6% m/m, while inventories progressed 0.6%. As a result, the real inventory-to-sales ratio fell two ticks to a stillelevated 1.48.”

“The unadjusted capacity utilization rate in Canada’s manufacturing sector, meanwhile, rose 2.2 percentage point to 80.7%.”