ggersh,
This is just my opinion based solely on my own exposure to general sales at the company I work for.
IMO, this GDP number is complete bullshit.
I'm responsible for North American automotive for my company. Forecasting is serious business for us. The unwritten rule is to forecast an annual number about 3-4% below what you expect it will be. This is because the board loves to push capital to the maximum capacity before giving the ok for expansion. At the end of the year, when they aggregate the sales numbers for each segment globally, the victor is the one that hits numbers that exactly meet this unwritten rule.
Now when things are good, no one tracks these forecasts, but when they are bad, they first start sending monthly updates, then weekly, and then daily. We went daily about three months ago.
Everyone is aware that the automotive industry is depressed, and probably going to trend lower. What is interesting is what the rest of the segments inside the company are reporting. Everyone of them is down. And the range of industry these other segments cover is simply amazing. You name it and we have a product there; medical, graphics, magnetics, high tech product I can't name, consumer electronics, telecom, and of course automotive. All of them DOWN.
A story from automotive. About six weeks ago a large customer on our largest platform bumped up releases. I'm now responsible for authorizing premium air freight, so I got a bit concerned about this increase. Last year the monkey who did this job made a mistake and we took about a $280,000 hit. So, I contacted the customer and challenged their numbers. I told them that there is a massive inventory of trucks at the plants and the dealer lots, and there is no way this number is correct. They stood by their numbers and I agreed to expedite SOME material. Good thing I did, for just last week they started canceling orders, again. Any bump you hear about in truck sales is just bullshit, as the pipeline is just not pulling enough material from the suppliers to justify such claims.
GT
TH |
