Manufacturing sales of $71B in February missed estimates slightly, but were still up 3.6% sequentially - thanks to a partial recovery in vehicle production…

… which drove a 43% gain in motor vehicle sales, echoing February’s trade print and feeding through to wholesale activity - which increased 2% M/M.

The pickup in production also pushed capacity utilization higher, the first up month in the last five - but not enough to prevent a further build in backlogs…

… with unfilled orders rising ~2%. Taken together with a declining inventory-to-sales ratio and a drawdown in raw material balances…

… the data continues to point toward a supply-constrained environment.