http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-20/caterpillar-sales-latest-cratering-confirm-global-growth-slowdown
Caterpillar Sales Latest Cratering Confirm Global Growth Slowdown
While CAT's CEO puts on a brave face, the results from his company are clearly indicative of the slowing global growth that everyone (apart from nominal equity indices) knows is occurring. For months, talking heads have used CAT's results as a proxy for growth and as they are rising confirming their inherent BTFD biases; however, this month's terrible results - with Asia/Pac down 12% on a 3-month rolling basis and North America down 11% - appears to confirm what has been evident in the lagging global GDP data for over a year - things are not picking up.
CAT Results...
Confirming the slowing Global GDP (that stocks seems so adamant to ignore)...
for now...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-20/spending-crunch-official-we-are-confident-there-issue-consumer
The Spending Crunch Is Official: "We Are Confident There Is An Issue With The Consumer"
Think the Walmart "disastrous" sales memo was a one-off event, which net of Walmart's damage should be completely ignored (something the market has been perfectly happy to oblige with)? Then listen to a separate perspective on the US consumer, this time from a very different angle: that of Town Sports International which operates such gyms as New York Sports Club, and specifically its CEO David Gallagher, who in last night's conference call just confirmed what everyone knows: "As we moved into January membership trends were tracking to expectations in the first half of the month, but fell off track and did not meet our expectations in the second half of the month.We believe the driver of this was the rapid decline in consumer sentiment that has been reported and is connected to the reduction in net pay consumers earn given the changes in tax rates that went into effect in January."
It goes on:
Based on how broad-based the slowdown has been quarter-to-date, we are confident there is an issue with the consumer. We were going to do everything in our power to make up for this January member shortfall, we continue to see softness and expect to net less than half the net member gain that was achieved in Q1 of 2012.Unfortunately, we are also seeing the softness in our ancillary revenue.
And on:
While the consumer has recently turned much more cautious again, we were hoping that it will be temporary, and we are confident that the foundation and ability to execute at a very high level that we now have in place will serve us well. We have worked very hard to rebound from the recession and rebuild our membership base from the low we experienced in 2009.And on:So we’re seeing the behavior very similar and we’re very confident that it is coming from the consumer. As I mentioned earlier in my script part portion, when we look at our business there are really 3 components that we’re watching closely all the time. The first is execution and how we delivering our product and services. Second is, what the competition looks like how it has changed mark-to-market, year-on-year and then in terms of consumer behavior. We’ve seen consumer sentiment change drastically within the last couple of months. We saw that after the first really payroll period in January, which is about the second week of January, we really start seeing a slowdown in Ancillary, Personal Training and membership sales. And our sort of increase that we’ve seen on the cancellation side is directly related to the members that are non-users. So it really does go to the consumer side of the business.And on:We believe that once consumers understand our average member is probably losing somewhere in the area of about $1,500 a year once our members understand the impact they have on their daily living with the rising cost of gas and the lower income from social security or the taxes that they’re seeing now.But there may be hope:We estimate close to half of this loss is membership attributable to Hurricane Sandy.Luckily, in a centrally-planned, command economy, who needs such meaningless fundamental staples as cash flow, consumption or even trade...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-20/foxconn-freezes-hiring-iphone-production-slowdown
FoxConn Freezes Hiring On iPhone Production Slowdown
First it was Walmart letting the truth finally slip last Friday when a leaked memo showed recent sales are a "total disaster." Today, as anyone who has looked at AAPL premarket quotes will surmise, it's Apple's turn, following a report in the FT that FoxConn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, "has imposed a recruitment freeze across almost all of its factories in China 5th as it slows production of Apple's iPhone." It is not an internal memo, but in this particular case actions speak even louder than leaked words: 'The suspension in hiring by China's largest private sector employer, and the biggest assembler of Apple products, is the first search countrywide move since the 2009 downturn, prompted by the financial crisis. It underscores the weakening demand for some Apple products, Which has put pressure on the American company's battered share price. "Currently, none of the plants in mainland China have hiring plans," said Liu Kun, a company spokesman at Foxconn's largest manufacturing facility in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen."
So first Walmart, the world's largest private sector employer with over 2 million workers, and now FoxConn, the world's largest tech-focused employer with 1.2 million workers, is also realizing what a cashless, consumerless "recovery" means, regardless whether it is due to Apple or not. And the markets still continues to wave it off as one off eventsHuman resources officials at Foxconn's largest factories, local government officials and external recruiters working with the company said there had been internal notices on Tuesday and Wednesday to stop hiring until at least the end of March, 5th in response to reduced orders for the iPhone
Apple did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but Tim Cook, chief executive, told a conference last week that he did not think demand for iPhones was peaking. "We do not have the word 'limit' in the Apple vocabulary. . . I see a [smartphone] market that's incredible to be in. Maybe one of the best markets of all time, "he said.
However, at external recruiter in the northern province of Shandong, who identified himself only as Mr. Zhang, said Foxconn's demand for workers this year was as low as that in 2009.
The company's work force in China was estimated at about 800,000 during the 2009 crisis, but rose to 1.2m last year ahead of the launch of the iPhone 5 Workers' tenure at the company is less than 13 months on average, according to a person close to the company. This suggests that head count at Foxconn could fall by least of thousands if it stopped hiring for a month and its turnover of workers Remained as high as last yearRecruiters said hiring has stopped for the iPhone and iPad production lines in Shenzhen, the company's largest plant with more than 200,000 workers, as well as at Zhengzhou, the second-largest with about 200,000 workers, Which therefore makes iPhones. Taiyuan, Which had 79.000 workers as of September and makes iPhone parts, and Chengdu, Which makes the iPad were, thus putting a freeze on hiring.
As for Apple's demand-driven issues, those are very well known:The move follows a recent decline in sales at Apple suppliers . "In January, Apple's supply chain-related gene names rally delivered a slowing sales momentum due to the sluggish shipments of MacBook, iPhone 5 and iPad during the holiday season," Nomura said in a research note this week.Hon Hai, the Taiwan-listed flagship of the group Which uses the trade name Foxconn reported, at 8 per cent sales decline last month, and Quanta Computer , the world's largest notebook contract manufacturer and therefore at Apple supplier, saw sales drop 16 per cent .Fear not: all shall promptly be well once FoxConn it wasn't really Apple's fault and the end-demand collapse was all due to snow, meteors, the sequester and Bush. All in that order.
And now, back to your algorithmic, Fed-ordained stock "market" ramp, where news of global recession should be enough to lift the S&P by at least 10 points.
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