Summer Behind Us, Autumn Rebound on the Way?

摘要

We are now entering the "Fall busy season" following a summer slowing. Excess mid-year inventories throughout the supply chain coupled with somewhat reduced end market demand produced a spring/summer downward "blip" in the recovery cycle. As I write this column in early September the most recent data available 0uly) shows that U.S. electronic equipment shipments were continuing modest growth (Chart 1) but that orders had "corrected" from a late spring "bloat." Now that orders are back in line with shipments and summer is behind us hopefully we'll see steady improvement into 2005. On a global basis semiconductor shipments to an area (a measure of assembly activity) dipped sharply in July (Chart 2) due to both seasonality and inventory corrections. Based upon past performance August should rebound and September should exhibit a large peak.