Trying to get a handle on the current state of affairs in the fastener marketplace is no easy task these days. There are a few constants in the market that are easy to point to. Oil & Gas, Big Truck and Agriculture are down. Coal is way down. Aerospace and the Auto Industry have been pretty good but then someone from the IFI told me that Aerospace has come down a bit. An industry friend who attended a recent IFI meeting shared with me that their guest speaker, an economist, told them that the fundamentals of our economy are solid and we can expect growth later in the year (at least I think that is pretty much what he told me). Some people are down significantly, some are just flat, others are up just a bit. But nothing seems to be easy these days. Unless you are winning over some new business that maybe you’ve been working on for a while, then you might be doing pretty good. There is some amount of that being reported. But I do not have very many people telling me, “yeah, my customers are cranking and business is up from last year”. Just not hearing it.
via While the fastener market is flat, what’s your vision for the future? – Fastenerblog.net.