Economic Market Update

The outlook for U.S. economic growth in 2016 and 2017 softened in the second half of 2015, as forward-looking manufacturing and material handling data reflected a significant slowdown in activity. While U.S. manufacturing has weakened, the U.S. service sector has remained solid, which bodes well for growth through at least the middle of 2016. At the same time that the ...

The economic climate for the balance of 2015 and 2016 is likely to be characterized by solid U.S. economic growth, an improving global economy, modestly rising commodity prices and continued foreign exchange rate volatility. In the new Material Handling Equipment Manufacturing (MHEM) forecast models, strong equity markets, low interest rates and continued manufacturing expansion are supportive of new orders. However, ...

The second half of 2015 is likely to be characterized by a solid U.S. economy, an improving global economy, modestly increasing commodity prices and continued foreign exchange rate volatility. Despite the deceleration in U.S. growth in Q4 2014 and Q1 2015, we still expect solid year-over-year U.S. economic growth for all of 2015, as well as continued improvements in the ...

Our economic expectations have not changed in the past quarter; we still expect solid U.S. economic growth in 2015. This growth is likely to be accompanied by downside risks to global growth, benign materials costs that rise later in the year, and volatile foreign exchange markets. While we previously acknowledged elevated risks to global growth in the first half of ...

Since 2010, the global economy has been experiencing modest growth, and we expect the same in 2015. In fact, we encourage firms to consider that 2015 could look remarkably similar to 2014. Along those lines, a number of critical market dynamics are likely to seem extremely familiar, including modest U.S. growth and the gradual removal of accommodative Fed monetary policy, ...

We often describe the global economy as a supply chain. Generally speaking, the United States and Europe are key consuming economies at the most downstream point in the global supply chain, while China occupies one of the critical midstream positions, and commodity producing economies are at upstream points in the global economy. The good news is that the outlook for ...

“Polar vortex” was the trending term this past winter. But even as the meteorological catch phrase burned up the Twitter feeds, its frigid weather iced up the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) and other indexes. Manufacturing was slowed by the record cold. Despite that, though, the current data has most business sectors either sitting pretty or on an uptick. U.S. economic ...

The U.S. economy has had a long history of ups and downs, most notably in recent times from the Great Depression in 1929 to the Great Recession in 2007. In between those major economic disruptions, there have been an additional dozen official recessions. Even between recessions, the economy is always rising and falling in smaller waves. Tracking the movements of ...

Every day, headlines present an inordinate amount of conflicting and worrisome information. ITR Economics™ often receives emails with articles attached predicting impending doom, a stock market crash of immense proportions, the collapse of the U.S. dollar, and a future where U.S. GDP growth is limited. Others see unlimited potential in 2014 and a year that will prove to be much ...

By Joel Kranc By all accounts and economic indicators, the U.S. economy grew more than expected in the second quarter with higher GDP and private employers maintaining an increased pace of hiring. A recovery with some momentum has been building and this can be seen in the logistics and supply chain industries as well. A recent “Logistics Market Snapshot” produced ...