Barometer Steady

Industrial commodity prices are one of the surest economic barometers. If they rise during a recession, they usually signal a recovery; if they drop as a result of reduced buying of raw materials, they signal a turndown in industrial activity.

In the '203, the industrial commodity index was going down long before the '29 crash. In the 1937 recession, the commodity index started down three months before other indexes declined.

Last week the Commerce Department's index of wholesale industrial prices (nonfarm, nonfood products) showed the amazing stability of current industrial prices. The new figure of 115.7 (1947-49 = 100) was the same as a month before and only 1.2 points above the year-ago level.

The stability of metals, one element of the index, is due partly to the way the Government has been handling its stockpiling programs. Some metals have been bought to support prices or released to ease them. For example, to help fill the current copper shortage, the U.S. Office of Defense Mobilization announced that in the third quarter of this year American industry will get 16,000 tons of copper that had been earmarked for the federal stockpile.

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