I've been reading, watching and listening to a lot of pundits lately -- economic experts, industry experts, stock market experts, you name it -- trying to get some idea of what to expect next. Heh.

By most measures, and according to most observers, the manufacturing economy continues to hum along. U.S. manufacturing has been in growth mode for several years, although the rate of growth has slowed, and most are predicting that it will continue to slow throughout 2019.

I've always been a big fan of thunderstorms. I especially enjoy that quiet moment of anticipation right after you see a flash of lightning. There's a tension in the air, a sense of excitement. You know what's coming, and you wait for it...I feel like we're in that moment, right now. We're waiting for the boom.

Over the past several months, members of our staff have traveled quite a bit, and we've had a lot of opportunities to gauge their confidence. And while nobody is overwhelmingly enthusiastic - nobody has told us this is their best year ever - almost everyone seems at least content with the stability that slow and steady growth provides.

Our “Batten Down The Hatches” call proved timely as the market sold off by about (10 percent) before staging a partial recovery

For several months, many economists have been using the “R” word when it comes to manufacturing. They say we’ve been in a global manufacturing recession since some time in the fourth quarter of last year.

Third-quarter earnings confirmed the worst-case scenario — plunging oil prices are whacking almost the entire industrial sector. The theme is hardly new, as the pattern of our headlines has revealed over the past fifteen or so months:

Third-quarter earnings are confirming the worst-case scenario, i.e. — not only are energy related end markets in a downturn, but conditions continue to worsen.

With two armed conflicts underway impacting economic performance in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, we continue our investment stance of “Buy on the Sound of Cannons — Selectively” — but readers of Power Transmission Engineering should not be sanguine. Geopolitics is beginning to exert significant pressure on several end markets: I specifically refer to oil price. West Texas Intermediate or WTI has dropped from its $95-105 trading range in late spring to about $75 — about a (25%) drop despite wo ongoing conflicts because of excess supply.

The best growth market, perhaps in spite of ourselves, is the United States.