PMPA Business Trends Sales Index for May climbed to its second highest value ever as forward looking indicators for Sales, Lead Time, Employment and Profitability softened but remained positive.
Second only to the value for March 2018!
Our year to date average is 136, up 11 points or 8.8% over 2017’s year-end average of 125.
We are at 106% of where we were a year ago in May.
The FED reported that Industrial Production (IP) Industrial Production edged down 0.1 percent in May after rising
0.9 percent in April. Manufacturing production fell 0.7 percent in May, largely because truck assemblies were disrupted by
a major fire at a parts supplier. Excluding motor vehicles and parts, factory output moved down 0.2 percent.”
Our industry is clearly outperforming IP- they cannot make it until we produce the precision components needed.
The sentiment indicators while lower, still remain in positive territory, and are likely based on the realization that the summer is typically less demanding than the first quarter.
Full report available HERE
Speaking of Precision Blog 