After three months of successive order growth, N. American rigid PCB orders dipped in October (Chart 1). It appears that there just wasn't enough end-market demand to sustain a recovery. Electronic equipment orders, which have been generally fiat for the last year, trended downward slightly in the last few months (Chart 2). Separating Chart 2 into its components we see that orders by sector (Chart 3) have been very volatile lately. Computers (red) are generally recovering, and instruments (magenta) show continuous (but modest) growth. However orders for communications (including Internet) equipment (green) and military electronics (blue) have fluctuated wildly with no clear upward trends yet. Any PCB recovery will be tentative until we see some consistent increases in electronic equipment orders.
展开▼
