U.S. manufacturers consumed $173.64 million worth of cutting tools during April, a decline of 5.75% from the March total and a 15.0% drop from the April 2015 result. The data is drawn from the monthly Cutting Tool Market Report, which tracks consumption of cutting tools by manufacturers — including machine shops, contract manufacturers, and OEMs — as an indicator of overall manufacturing activity.
The April result halted a two-month trend of rising consumption total.
“The cutting tool sector took a step backwards in April after showing some modest improvements over the last few months,” observed Eli Lustgarten, senior vice president at Longbow Securities, a comment cited by the report’s source. “Demand levels continue to reflect a movement to stabilization in a generally weak environment for manufacturing. This reflects the sluggish global economic growth with minimal gains in U.S. industrial production, the strong dollar, weak agriculture, oil and gas activity, and the rising election uncertainty.”
The U.S. Cutting Tool Institute and AMT – the Association for Manufacturing Technology, issue the report jointly, basing it on actual totals reported by companies participating in the CTMR program.
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