Materials · Manufacturing pulse

What raw materials are doing to your quote.

Producer price indexes for metals, resins, and chemicals plus global spot metals, each with a six-month projection and a quote-drift table for locked prices.

Producer price indexes, year over year

  • PPI: primary nonferrous metals: 544.731 (Aug 2026), up 49.3% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: steel mill products: 381.162 (Aug 2026), up 23.4% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: nonferrous mill shapes: 399.03 (Aug 2026), up 23.3% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: iron and steel: 378.128 (Aug 2026), up 17.9% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: industrial chemicals: 336.006 (Aug 2026), up 13.3% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: paper: 282.266 (Aug 2026), up 10% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: machinery and equipment: 201.922 (Aug 2026), up 7.8% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: lumber: 286.633 (Aug 2026), up 7.6% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: plastic resins and materials: 280.569 (Aug 2026), up 6.6% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: foundry and forge shop products: 296.486 (Aug 2026), up 3.7% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: allied and miscellaneous paint products: 422.953 (Aug 2026), up 0.3% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: bolts, nuts, screws, rivets, and washers: 329.559 (Aug 2026), down 4% year over year (BLS).
  • PPI: other agricultural chemicals: 208.525 (Aug 2026), down 5.1% year over year (BLS).

Global spot metals

  • Global copper: $13,543 per tonne, up 38.6% year over year (IMF via FRED, Jul 2026).
  • Global aluminum: $3,158 per tonne, up 21.2% year over year (IMF via FRED, Jul 2026).
  • Global iron ore: $102 per tonne, up 0.4% year over year (IMF via FRED, Jul 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 2026-10-01.