March 2008

U.S. wholesale trade revenues in January 2008 were $387.7 billion, up 2.7 percent from December and up 15.1 percent from January 2007. The December preliminary estimate was revised upward $0.7 billion or 0.2 percent.
 
January sales of durable goods were up 2.4 percent from last month and were up 5.1 percent from a year ago. Compared to last month, sales of metals and minerals, except petroleum, were up 4.2 percent and sales of furniture and home furnishings were up 3.7 percent. Sales of nondurable goods were up 3.0 percent from last month and were up 24.8 percent from last year. Sales of farm product raw materials were up 16.1 percent from last month and sales of petroleum and petroleum products were up 3.5 percent.
 
Inventories. Total inventories of …

January U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $308.73 million, according to the American Machine Tool Distributors’Association and the Association for Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTC program, was down 26.1% from December, and down 4.0% from the total of $321.50 million reported for January 2007.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals of actual data reported by companies participating in the USMTC program.

Despite the publicized concerns about the U.S. economy, we anticipate that first quarter machine tool consumption numbers will improve as manufacturers start to implement 2008 capital budgets and use the potential savings available from the new economic …

More than 50% of MDM readers in a recent MDM survey are concerned” about the state of the economy, and 27% say they are “very concerned.”

About 45% expect the economy to grow worse over the next six months. About the same number expect the economy to stay the same.
 
These results are part of the MDM Reader Survey on the Economy, conducted online in the last two weeks of February.
 
Overall, results were mixed and, it seems, dependent on customer segment. The two most cited segments in which respondents are seeing slowdowns, unsurprisingly, were building materials/construction and automotive.

Others mentioned slowdowns in any market tied to residential construction, including electrical, HVAC, appliances, plumbing, flooring, and …