Business Conditions Deteriorated Again in August, but NEMA's EBCI Panel Sees Improvement Ahead

The latest Electroindustry Business Confidence Index (EBCI) results suggest the North American electroindustry remained in a “soft patch” in August. The EBCI for current North American conditions slipped to 35.7 from 38.6 in July, the second consecutive ...
Aug. 29, 2012
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The latest Electroindustry Business Confidence Index (EBCI) results suggest the North American electroindustry remained in a “soft patch” in August. The EBCI for current North American conditions slipped to 35.7 from 38.6 in July, the second consecutive month it has fallen short of the 50 point level indicating an equal number of panelists see conditions improving as see them deteriorating. While the EBCI for future North American conditions also retreated, panelists, on balance, remained optimistic. The index measured 54.8 in August, a decline from July's reading of 61.4.

The EBCI is a monthly survey of senior executives at electrical manufacturers published by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), Rosslyn, Va. Click here for the complete August 2012 report.

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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.