Economist Beaulieu Tells NAW Distributors to Hang On -- Help is On the Way
While distributor still have some tough months ahead of them, most sectors of the economy -– with the notable exception of non-residential construction -- have pretty much bottomed out. That's one of the key takeaways from an economic forecast given by Alan Beaulieu, president, Institute for Trend Research, Bascawen, N.H., at the 2010 Executive Summit of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributrors (NAW), in Washington, D.C., held Jan. 26-28 at the Fairmont Hotel.
“Inventory replenishment is starting,” he said. “2010 is that rocky bottom where the second half is better othan the first. Commercial construction will have to wait until 2011.”
In the not-so-good-news department, he expects inflation to hit 6.5% in 2011, but expects it to stick around the 3.5% mark this year. “Inflation is coming, and it will show up in commodities first.”
Because of his concerns about inflation, he urged meeting attendees to make their capital equipment expenditures and/or building purchases in 2010, before prices go up. Beaulieu will be providing independent manufacturers' reps and electrical manufacturers with a forecast at next month's NEMRA Annual Conference in New York.
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Jim Lucy Blog
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Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.