The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) increased 1.2% during the four weeks ended Friday and 3.8% over the last three months. The price index increased 1.1% y/y.

Prices in the Miscellaneous grouping increased 1.5% during the last four weeks but were little changed versus last year. In the Metals group, prices rose 1.7% over the last four weeks but fell 1.6% y/y. Zinc prices rose 4.0% in the last four weeks but fell 3.7% y/y. The price of lead gained 2.6% during the last four weeks (-0.8% y/y). Copper scrap prices increased 1.1% in last month and aluminum prices rose 0.9% m/m. The cost of steel scrap improved 0.6% in four weeks. Prices in the Textile grouping improved 1.3% in four weeks but fell 0.9% y/y. Cotton prices rose 6.3% m/m while burlap prices improved 3.5% in four weeks (-3.1% y/y). Working lower were prices in the Crude Oil & Benzene group which eased 0.6% during the last four weeks as WTI crude oil prices declined to $58.40 per barrel on Friday. Moving the other way, prices of the petro-chemical benzene rose 3.8% in the last four weeks (44.8% y/y).

The recent improvement in industrial commodity prices accompanied a 0.2% rise (-1.3% y/y) in U.S. factory output during December. It followed a 1.0% increase. The consensus forecast from the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) calls for a modest 0.9% rise in factory sector output this year. During the last ten years, there has been a 71% correlation between the y/y change in industrial commodity prices and the y/y change in factory sector output.

Commodity price data can be found in Haver's DAILY, WEEKLY, USECON and CMDTY databases. The NABE forecast is in the SURVEYS database.