����ý

Custom injection molders’ capacity utilization jumped almost 9 percentage points from mid-year to December 2012, hitting an average of 59%, back to the high levels of 2010 and the first half of 2011.

In our latest half-year survey, with 75 plants responding, 35% saw higher capacity utilization in the second half of last year, about the same as in the first half, while 45% saw lower utilization, and 20% reported no change.

Our index of custom molders’ machine-hour rates showed no change in the half-year period, after a 1.5% increase in the first half. That was less than the 1.9% cumulative growth in the index for 2011.

A whopping two-thirds of respondents expressed optimism that ����ý conditions would improve in the near term (a 50% increase over the first half), vs. 11% predicting worse conditions, and 23% foreseeing no change. Optimists outnumbered pessimists by more than 6:1, almost twice the ratio in the first half. In the Northeast, Southeast, and South Central regions, at least 75% of the respondents expressed optimism about ����ý conditions. Optimism was considerably weaker among molders in the North Central and Western regions.

Among 41 mold shops reporting, the average increase in new orders was up 2.6%, vs. 2% in the first half.