Steel production hit its peak back in 2021, and here's the thing—it's dropped 8% since then through 2025. That's not just a minor dip. When hard commodity output starts contracting like this, it tells you something important about the broader economy: material-intensive growth is losing steam. Think about what steel represents—infrastructure projects, manufacturing capacity, industrial expansion. A sustained decline here? That's basically the real world signaling slower economic activity ahead. For anyone tracking macro cycles and how different asset classes respond to growth cycles, this is the kind of data point that matters. Commodities, energy demand, infrastructure investment—they're all interconnected. When one starts rolling over, it usually doesn't stay isolated.