Wednesday, November 4, 2026
Caterpillar's sales rose 17 per cent to $20.7 billion in the third quarter and adjusted profit was $7.20 a share, the company said on Thursday. Its order backlog reached a record $78 billion, up about $38 billion from a year earlier. It expects construction equipment volume to fall modestly in the fourth quarter as dealers shrink their stocks.
Steel Dynamics said on 19 October that third-quarter net income was $756 million, or $5.26 a share, on net sales of $6.5 billion and record shipments of 3.8 million tons. The average external steel price rose $102 a ton from the second quarter to $1,400. The EPS was below the $5.34-$5.38 range the company gave on 17 September.
At their Brussels summit on 15 October, EU leaders pushed for import quotas to protect chemicals and industrial machinery from Chinese competition, Euronews reports, and a senior EU official said the Commission will present two new trade tools by the end of the year. The bloc's annual trade deficit with China is a record €360 billion.
Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade certified a class on Thursday of importers who paid the emergency-powers tariffs between February 2025 and February 2026 and have not filed their own suits. Class actions at the court are rare. Refunds are not yet ordered.
Statistics Canada reported on Friday that employment fell by 68,000 in September, the second straight monthly decline, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.5 per cent. Economists had expected a gain of about 9,200. The public sector accounted for more than the whole drop.
Minutes of the Federal Reserve's September meeting show every participant supported raising rates to a range of 3.75 to 4 per cent, and most expect another increase by the end of the year. Tariffs, the main inflation story of 2025, are fading. Spending on artificial intelligence and energy are taking their place.
Stelco has begun issuing layoff notices at its Hamilton plant, with the first cuts effective on Sunday. Cleveland-Cliffs' chief executive says the layoffs are temporary and tied to the trade war. Ottawa says the jobs were promised when Cliffs bought the company in 2024, and has given it until next week to explain.
Teikoku Databank counted 10,118 Japanese companies with a presence in mainland China in June, down 22 per cent in two years and 30 per cent from the 2012 peak. A record 4,137 left or could no longer be traced. Among those that remain, China's standing as a production base has slipped only a little since 2019. Its standing as a market has collapsed.
The Institute for Supply Management's services survey slipped to 54.9 in September, still comfortably in growth. Its prices index rose to 74, the highest since July 2022. Half of the purchasing managers surveyed paid more for what they buy; 2.2 per cent paid less. All 17 industries that reported a change in prices reported an increase.
The fiscal year closed on Wednesday with a record $332.6 billion of customs deposits, according to the Treasury's daily cash statement. It also closed with $157.8 billion paid out through Customs and Border Protection, against about $10.5 billion in each of the two previous years. Net of those payments, the border raised less than it did in fiscal 2025. Since May, it has paid out $17.5 billion more than it took in.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association and four other technology trade groups wrote to President Trump on Friday warning that broad Section 232 tariffs on semiconductors, robots and industrial machinery would raise the cost of building AI data centers and factories. Advanced chips bound for American data centers are exempt from the 25 per cent tariff imposed in January. A second phase under discussion may end that.
From January to July, China reported $258.1 billion of exports to the United States. The US Census Bureau recorded $158.3 billion of imports from China and Hong Kong. The difference, almost $100 billion, is five times its usual size, and a Peterson Institute analysis says tariff evasion is the most likely reason. Vietnam's figures run the other way.
Jaguar Land Rover is expected to confirm 4,000 job cuts on Monday. Pre-tax profit in the last financial year came in at £14m against £2.5bn the year before, on revenue down close to 21 percent to £22.9bn. A fifth off the top line took ninety-nine percent of the profit.
One policy pays you to break ground before the year ends. The other may raise the price of the equipment you would break ground with, and has not yet said by how much or on what. Waiting is the only move that answers both.