Capacity Utilization up in December 2012

The good news keeps coming. Capacity utilization was up in December 2012 for the total industry and hit a 6 month high of 78.8%.

Mining was very interesting as it kept climbing to an all time high of 91.9%, above its historical average of 85%.

The data is what it is and it indicates higher metal prices in the coming months.

Chart 1: Capacity utilization

As an extra we found out that China's GDP grew to 8%. This is all in line with the positive PMI numbers we got last month. And we all know that China's GDP consists mainly of production (60%) and consumption of commodities as I pointed out here. So, I expect a higher commodities market and with that a higher stock market, mainly in Asia.