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Economics Pricing and Purchasing - Supply Management

North American Prices and Wage Costs Forecast Services

The most comprehensive outlook for pricing and wage rates to more effectively evaluate the North American commodity markets

With critical data, insight, and analysis, our North American Prices and Wages service allows you to more effectively evaluate the North American commodity markets. Covering over 1,100 prices, the service provides the most comprehensive outlook for pricing and wage rates in North America. Built on our proven forecasting models and enhanced with our in-house expertise on market dynamics we take our estimates beyond broad inflation rates or historical trends to give you the tools you need to make smarter, timely, and more lucrative purchasing decisions.

Clients rely on the service for:

  • Sourcing Guidance
  • Contracting
  • Input cost breakdowns
  • Benchmarking
  • Budgeting

The North American Prices and Wage module is provided via Connect ®, our client web site, as well as through regular access to our commodity experts through webinars, videos, telephone and email access. Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly analysis keeps clients fully informed of key changes and risks to price fluctuations and market conditions.

What's Included

Reports and analysis

Weekly Pricing Pulse – a snapshot of headline prices indexes

  • Weekly overview of historic price movements for 10 key industrial materials indexes

Monthly Commodity Price Watch – latest price pressures and market changes

  • North American coverage for 40 key commodities – a two-year outlook
  • Monthly newsletter provides analysis of price changes and the fundamentals driving key costs – energy, ferrous & nonferrous metals and chemicals prices
  • Monthly PPT deck examines key trends impacting various markets

Market Insights – regular analysis of the pricing environment by sector and region. The ultimate source for understanding costs and improving supplier negotiations, comprehensive industry and geographic analysis provides:

  • Segmented reviews of prices, supply, and demand by industry and geography
  • Sourcing Guidance section with insight on timing buys for major commodities
  • Dynamic tables outlining market conditions – economic outlooks as well as market drivers
  • Analyst access to discuss latest market dynamics and price implications
Forecasts and data

Ten Year Forecasts updated quarterly – web-based data access allows for easy cost analysis and tracking

  • Forecast of over 1,100 commodity prices and labor rates for US, Canada and Mexico - forecast are presented in Cost Analyzer and Excel spreadsheets on Connect.
  • Historic price data for over 500,000 time series concepts – providing the most comprehensive historic trend pricing service on the market.

Major Forecast Sectors

Tools and calculators

Connect ® Maximize your subscription content with Connect – our state-of-the-art business intelligence platform

  • Real-time reporting: Read updated analysis and commentary as data releases and events warrant
  • Email alerts: Set up notifications for updates to categories of interest
  • Rapid data retrieval: Access analysis and data in a single search
  • Formatting/presentation tools: Format data by relevant indices and build customizable, presentation-ready graphs
  • Flexible export: Export all forecast tables in multiple formats (Excel, PDF, PowerPoint)
  • Automated content refreshes: Save searches and update content automatically

The Cost Analyzer – Puts the breadth of the Pricing & Purchasing commodity price coverage across 60 geographies at your fingertips. The Cost Analyzer allows for deep insight into past and future price changes so you can cut spending, assess your buying performance and favorably negotiate purchase contracts. Providing input cost breakdowns for over 300 commodity areas, the Analyzer enables clients to:

  • Analyze/Alter/Combine individual data series relevant to your business questions in a dedicated workspace
  • Export the data in refreshable Excel workbook or PowerPoint to plug into existing models, tools or applications for further analysis
  • Perform margin analysis on supplier industries
  • Customize or alter 500+ pre-built cost models to check the competitiveness of a supplier's price

Alloy Cost Calculator – allows quick, accurate assessment of metal alloy costs using the latest Pricing and Purchasing forecast. Understand cost breakdowns for almost 300 alloys and specialty steels for North America.

Polymer Cost Calculator – designed for plastics processors and end-users to estimate costs for specialized polymer compounds and blends using the latest Pricing and Purchasing forecast.

The Burden Wage Calculator – estimates fully burdened wages for over 400 US industries including the manufacturing and service sectors. This tool combines the latest price and wage forecasts from P&P with data from the US Census of Manufacturers to produce a time series of wrap rates as well as fully burdened wages. Using the calculator, users can customize industry wrap rates by state and occupation providing more insight into detailed industry labor and associated overhead costs.(Available as an add-on service.)

Client privileges
  • Full access to our Pricing and Purchasing team for ad-hoc requests and questions
  • Quarterly webcasts – Each quarter the Pricing and Purchasing team hosts a one-hour webcast to present our latest price outlook, focusing on how to effectively and efficiently leverage our price and wage data to time buys and negotiate better.
  • Regional Pricing and Purchasing conferences

Experts

Laura Hodges

Ms. Hodges is responsible for the management and operations of the Pricing and Purchasing Research team. Ms. Hodges has managed several projects on global cost analysis, including projects in Asia and South America, where the objective was to recommend the most cost-effective and efficient action in the procurement of key materials and services. She has spoken extensively on the topic of procurement pricing strategies and the global cost environment, including a presentation at the Institute of Supply Management titled, "Has China Lost Its Low-Cost Edge?" She has made presentations on the "Economic Risks to Consider Before Bidding Your Next Contract," and "Understanding and Estimating the Skilled Labor Shortage," at a conference of the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering. Ms. Laura Hodges holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the George Washington University, U.S., and a Master of Arts in Health and Labor Economics from Duke University, U.S. She also earned an MBA from Rutgers University, Beijing, China.

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John Mothersole

As director of research, Mr. Mothersole sets and executes research priorities to identify potential supply chain risks and opportunities. His other duties include providing inflation analysis for the US Economic Forecasting Service, World Industry Service and the metal price forecasts within the Global Link Model at IHS Markit. He is directly responsible for nonferrous metal forecasts. He has more than 30 years of experience in price analysis and price forecasting. A member of the National Association of Business Economists (NABE), Mr. Mothersole holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Economics, both from the University of Maryland, US.

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John Anton

Mr. Anton has expertise in the ferrous metals industry, he is responsible for evaluating the outlook for steel. He also specializes in forecasting commodities and works closely with the Automotive, Construction, Energy and Economics teams at IHS Markit. Steel demand is linked to outlooks from these key sectors. In turn, the profitability of these sectors can rise or fall depending on the price and availability of steel.Prior to joining IHS Markit, now IHS Markit, in 1995, he was in the private practice of law as well as an economist and statistician for the United States Department of Labor in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Mr. John Anton received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Florida State University, US, and a Juris Doctor from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary, US.

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Emily Crowley

An expert in North American labor markets and a specialist in labor supply, demand and wage escalation, Ms. Crowley is a key contributor to the semi-annual Global Manufacturing and Global Construction Compensation reports and to ongoing research of labor markets on the US Gulf Coast and Western Canada. Her research provides an analytical framework to compare labor cost and escalation on a global basis. Ms. Emily Crowley received her Masters of Science in Applied Economics from the Johns Hopkins University where she focused in quantitative methods.

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KC Chang, B.com, MA, MS

His expertise resides in the commodity sector, where he is responsible for the nonferrous and precious metals forecasts including platinum and palladium. His latest research focuses on supply chain risks and opportunities for minor metals such as cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements used in the growing electric vehicle industry. In the past, KC worked on several projects focused on global cost analysis for clients in the energy and mining sector. These projects helped clients estimate capital costs and develop cost-effective procurement solutions for key materials and services. In addition to his work with clients, KC provides commodity market commentary to various news organizations including Bloomberg, Reuters, National Public Radio, Kitco Metals, Metal Bulletin and the American Metal Market.Mr. Chang received his M.A. in economics and his M.S. in statistics from the George Washington University. He also received his B.com in finance and mathematics from McGill University.

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Deni Koenhemsi

Ms. Koenhemsi's previous areas of industry focus include healthcare, professional services and consumer goods. Prior to joining the company, she worked as a country risk economist at AIG and as a research assistant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies focused on Turkish economy and politics. Ms. Deni Koenhemsi received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of Richmond, US, and a Master of Arts in International Economic Relations from American University, Washington, D.C., US.

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