Thursday, July 23, 2009

The mailman doesn't ring recovery, yet 

Bad news from UPS, via The Business Insider:

�Our trends so far in July show no material uptick in growth, We don�t have any confidence that either demand or activity is going to pick up substantially.� ...

�The economic environment continues to be difficult. Declines in both our domestic and international businesses appear to be stabilizing but volumes will remain significantly below last year�s levels,� said Kurt Kuehn, UPS�s chief financial officer.

�Although declines in economic indicators are less dramatic than earlier in the year, questions remain as to when business activity will begin to strengthen,� he continued. �The business environment in the third quarter should be similar to the second quarter."

Edward Harrison wondered a couple weeks ago if FedEx and UPS are better cyclical indicators than traditional cyclical stocks like Alcoa. If we're in the third quarter now and UPS is saying things are not looking up for them, that is a very bad sign for an early recovery of this cycle.

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