Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said that although manufacturers continued to increase production in December, which indicated that the commodity production sector would contribute to further strong economic growth in the fourth quarter, the outlook for early 2026 looked less optimistic. In fact, the gap between production growth and falling orders is the largest since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Unless demand improves, current factory production levels are clearly unsustainable. If production capacity has to be reduced, the number of employed people will also be adversely affected. A key factor in sales concerns is the extent to which producers will have to pass on higher costs to consumers in the form of price increases, which are still mainly due to tariffs. Input cost inflation slowed in December to its lowest level since January last year, which gave some encouragement. However, although this cost trend indicates that the impact of tariffs on inflation peaked as early as summer, costs are still rising at a higher rate month by month, indicating that US companies' cost growth continues to be higher than that of competitors in most other major economies.

Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said that although manufacturers continued to increase production in December, which indicated that the commodity production sector would contribute to further strong economic growth in the fourth quarter, the outlook for early 2026 looked less optimistic. In fact, the gap between production growth and falling orders is the largest since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Unless demand improves, current factory production levels are clearly unsustainable. If production capacity has to be reduced, the number of employed people will also be adversely affected. A key factor in sales concerns is the extent to which producers will have to pass on higher costs to consumers in the form of price increases, which are still mainly due to tariffs. Input cost inflation slowed in December to its lowest level since January last year, which gave some encouragement. However, although this cost trend indicates that the impact of tariffs on inflation peaked as early as summer, costs are still rising at a higher rate month by month, indicating that US companies' cost growth continues to be higher than that of competitors in most other major economies.