If the US avoids a recession, or at least a deep one, it will most likely be able to thank industrial companies.
While demand on the consumer side of the economy is weakening, it remains solid in the manufacturing sector and, more important, appears to be sustainable even if shoppers cut back further. Consider the outlook from a few companies most people pay little attention to.
Eaton Corp. Chief Executive Officer Craig Arnold said variations of “strong” and “strength” more than 45 times during a conference call with analysts on Aug. 2, and that’s not counting references to the dollar. “It feels positive, in some cases, too positive,” Arnold, whose company makes electrical gear for construction, power, autos and aerospace, among other goods. With a market value of about $60 billion, Eaton isn’t small.
Illinois Tool Works Inc., which is even larger than Eaton, said its organic sales were up 18% in July from a year earlier, the highest monthly growth rate all year. The company makes all kinds of products for the food service, test and measurement, welding, construction and auto industries, and most of those areas are “off to a really strong start in Q3.”
Companies as diverse as chemical maker DuPont de Nemours Inc., industrial distributor W.W. Grainger Inc. and a metal-bender like Arconic Corp. are saying the same thing: The manufacturing economy is sizzling.
“The industrial parts of the economy are certainly growing faster for us than the non-industrial parts right now,” said DG Macpherson, CEO of Grainger, which sells just about any industrial-related part or gadget you can think of.
While the strength of the industrial economy isn’t new, its ability to power through a downturn in consumer spending is a change from past cycles.
“We strongly believe that the industrial economy will decouple from the consumer economy,’’ Scott Davis, an analyst with Melius Research, said in an email. “There’s just too much pent-up demand for projects and megaprojects that are based more on secular changes than cyclical.”
The reasons for this decoupling are multifold. An obvious one is the recovery of investment in the oil and gas industry. Although some industrial companies pulled back exposure to energy, especially in activity closer to the wellhead, after oil prices sank in mid-2014, the increase in drilling reverberates broadly through the industrial economy with increased demand for steel, construction, trucks and safety equipment.
Another is that the makers of autos and heavy trucks are still struggling to keep up with demand and have huge holes in their inventories that will take a while to rebuild. There were 95,000 cars in inventory in June, down from a monthly average of 660,000 in 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The number of Class 8 trucks, as the big rigs are known, in backlog as a ratio of the build rate was about 10 for the first six months this year, which is lower than last year when the computer-chip shortage was at its peak, but still higher than 6.6 in 2019, according to FTR Associates data. It’s the opposite problem from large retailers, which are grappling with too much inventory.Makers of commercial and private jets also have big backlogs to fill as people, restless from the Covid-19 shut-ins, are on the move again. Construction projects are moving forward, and even consumer-facing companies are continuing with projects to improve their logistics, an area where costs jumped during the pandemic.
The transition to cleaner energy also is also feeding the fire of industrial demand, and the climate change bill passed by the Senate over the weekend would keep those flames burning for some time — perhaps even through a consumer recession.
Eaton’s Arnold has positioned his company to ride the wave of electrical power demand as economies wean themselves off oil. The company has a long history of selling transformers and circuit breakers for power generation and transmission and recently made a push to become a key supplier to electric vehicle manufacturers. The company boosted its 2002 earnings-per-share guidance by 4 cents to a midpoint of $7.56 and increased its forecast for annual organic sales growth to as much as 13% from 11%.
“So despite all the talk about potential slowdown and downturn in the market, and we’ll be ready if we have one, we’re focused on investing to capitalize on what we see as the super growth cycle, driven by favorable trends in the recovery and some of our other end markets,’’ Arnold said on the call.
Eaton, DuPont and ITW, which raised its guidance in May, called out international weakness from the China lockdowns and Europe’s difficulties with soaring energy prices. Still, there are no signs the international weakness is bleeding over to the US. The year-over-year increase in US industrial production in June was more than 4%, a solid pace, and that comes on top of the big rebound of more than 9% in June last year.Ironically, the same supply chain snags that stoked inflation because demand wasn’t being met also kept a lid on the overbuilding of vehicles, homes, electronics and other goods that normally would occur and then cause a pullback in output. The trucking industry, for example, is notorious for the boom-and-bust cycles because companies buy too many trucks when freight demand is strong and then have too much capacity when cargo cools. Those truckers were never able to purchase all the trucks they wanted. There will be no big bust this cycle.
Add it all up, and it makes sense that the manufacturing industry can buoy the economy through a downturn in consumer spending.
More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:
• It’s (Still) Going to Be Hard to Get a Car: Anjani Trivedi
• Customer Demand Is There. Supply Still Isn’t: Brooke Sutherland
• New Chips Act Could Become a $280 Billion Boondoggle: Editorial
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Thomas Black is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering logistics and manufacturing. Previously, he covered U.S. industrial and transportation companies and Mexico’s industry, economy and government.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets also climbed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in the base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 172.18 points at 23,383.35.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 34.99 points at 40,826.72. The S&P 500 index was up 10.56 points at 5,564.69, while the Nasdaq composite was up 74.84 points at 17,470.37.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.55 cents US compared with 73.59 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up $2.00 at US$69.31 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up five cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$40.00 at US$2,582.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was up six cents at US$4.20 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
