Materials ยท Manufacturing pulse
What raw materials are doing to your quote.
Producer price indexes for the metals, resins, and chemicals in a manufacturing bill of materials, plus global spot metals, each with a six-month projection
Producer price indexes, year over year
- Copper and brass mill shapes: 559.593 (May 2026), up 76.8% year over year (BLS).
- Aluminum mill shapes: 404.859 (May 2026), up 36.8% year over year (BLS).
- Plastic resins: 319.371 (May 2026), up 19.5% year over year (BLS).
- Industrial chemicals: 344.336 (May 2026), up 16.1% year over year (BLS).
- Paperboard and containers: 276.831 (May 2026), up 8.8% year over year (BLS).
- Machinery and equipment: 199.096 (May 2026), up 7.5% year over year (BLS).
- Iron and steel: 357.108 (May 2026), up 7% year over year (BLS).
- Steel mill products: 348.53 (May 2026), up 6.7% year over year (BLS).
- Castings: 296.206 (May 2026), up 4.4% year over year (BLS).
- Lumber and wood: 280.994 (May 2026), up 4.2% year over year (BLS).
- Paints and coatings: 422.953 (May 2026), up 0% year over year (BLS).
- Fasteners: 330.866 (May 2026), down 3.5% year over year (BLS).
- Industrial gases: 208.266 (May 2026), down 4.3% year over year (BLS).
Global spot metals
- Global copper: $13,484 per tonne, up 41.5% year over year (IMF via FRED, May 2026).
- Global aluminum: $3,654 per tonne, up 49.3% year over year (IMF via FRED, May 2026).
- Global iron ore: $112 per tonne, up 11.3% year over year (IMF via FRED, May 2026).
Why it matters
- A fixed quote priced a quarter ago has already absorbed the drift in these indexes; rework it against today's numbers before it erodes margin.
- Six-month projections for each core index use a damped, backtested Holt-Winters model whose out-of-sample accuracy is shown per material.
Last reviewed 2026-05-12.