Free Republic

WILMERDING, Pennsylvania — By July of this year, the last man on the job here at the Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation will, in all likelihood, turn around as he reaches the threshold of the same front door hundreds of thousands of workers have passed through since the 1890s. For the last time, he will look out over the 300,000-square-foot plant that has provided this country with so much technology and innovation for nearly 140 years, and he will think about the men and women who went before, and then turn out the lights for the last time. This is...

Sales of electric vehicles in the US have plateaued even though sales of cars overall remain healthy - suggesting many buyers are in no mood to ditch gasoline models anytime soon. Over the last six months, overall car sales have been higher than they were for the same months in 2022 or 2021 - when demand for EVs was still increasing. But in 2023, EV sales during the same period have stalled at around the 100,000- a-month mark following a period of rapid growth. The reduced demand has seen inventories stock piled, with prices of EVs slashed over the last...

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has been implementing changes to the way it collects its data, and it hasn’t been easy to understand what those changes mean for the traders who use the government agency’s reports to make key decisions. Looking through the changes to the EIA’s data collection process, Tyler Richey, co-editor at Sevens Report Research, said it was “not very clear exactly how the data will be affected.” It appears that previous data collection processes had “‘loopholes’ that allowed certain condensates and ‘other oils’ to not be reported in inventories, but now will be required to be reported...

The number of homes for sale on the market fell for the fifth straight month in September amid the already severe housing shortage. A new report from Realtor.com shows that the total number of homes for sale, including homes that were under contract but not yet sold, fell by 4% in September compared with the same time a year ago. On top of that, available home supply remains down a stunning 45.1% from the typical amount before the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, according to the report

The number of unsold electric vehicles at dealers in the second quarter tripled compared to the past year, signaling a weakened demand for the segment, said a recent report by leading auto-dealer data company Cox Automotive.In second quarter 2023, the average inventory for electric vehicles (EVs) topped more than 92,000 units on the ground at dealer lots, according to the 2023 Cox Automotive Mid-Year Review presentation. This is up 342 percent compared to second quarter 2022. During this period, the new “EV days’ supply,” which refers to the average number of days a warehouse holds inventory before selling it, rose...

U.S. businesses slightly lowered their inventories in March as spending tightened and consumers prioritized services over goods. Business inventories declined by an adjusted 0.1% in March after being flat in February, data from the U.S. Commerce Department showed Tuesday. February's reading was revised from an initially estimated 0.2% increase. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected inventories would be flat. Inventories rose by 0.7% at retailers, were flat at wholesalers and slid 0.8% at manufacturers. On an annual basis, total business inventories were up 6.5%, the data showed. The ratio of inventories to sales, which hints at how many...

mericans experienced the impact of labor and product shortages in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than two years later, shortages continue to arise and impact Americans. Earlier this month, Americans learned there was less than a month of diesel supply left in storage. It is the lowest storage supply since 2008 and has led to skyrocketing prices as U.S. refineries struggle to keep up with demand. But it doesn't stop there. Dozens of other sectors are struggling to meet demand––and the U.S. has experienced shortages ranging from employees to medications to parts needed for U.S. defense contractors' weapons.

Walmart, Target, Macy’s and Kohl’s are among retailers that have recently said they are canceling some orders to better balance inventory levels, a replay of a strategy used at the start of the pandemic. Other steps retailers are using to clear inventories as spending has slowed on some non-discretionary categories are employing markdowns and packing away products for the following year. The elevated inventory levels also reflect intentional over-buying to mitigate shortages and the easing of supply chain constraints. One risk of canceling orders is straining or damaging relationships with trading partners. After the pandemic arrived, many retailers were called...

Walmart Inc. said Tuesday that it has canceled billions of dollars in orders as part of a continued effort to align inventory levels with projected demand and to reduce its exposure to certain products that have fallen out of favor with budget-conscious consumers. The nation’s largest retailer (NYSE: WMT) said its U.S. division reported a 26% increase in fiscal second-quarter 2023 inventory levels compared with the same period in fiscal 2022. This was a 750-basis-point improvement over a nightmarish fiscal 2023 first quarter when Walmart got blindsided by a combination of rapidly rising costs and a mix of higher-end inventory...

<p>NEW YORK – Target reported solid sales for the fiscal second quarter but its profit plunged nearly 90% after it was forced to slash prices to clear unwanted inventories of clothing, home goods and electronics.</p><p>In early June, Target warned that it was canceling orders from suppliers and aggressively cutting prices because of a pronounced spending shift by Americans as the pandemic eased.</p>

CNN reports stores such as Target, Walmart, American Eagle and Gap are considering giving customers back their money for items they don’t want but don’t want the actual merchandise back. According to the report, the options are being considered because many retailers are struggling with tons of unpurchased inventory that must be stored. That problem is exacerbated by returns, prompting the unusual idea of letting customer keep merchandise while still offering a return.

Target has announced that it will cut prices and cancel orders for thousands of its products, as part of a frantic effort to clear out billions in backed-up inventory. The pent-up products consist of bulky items such as furniture, that were a commodity during the pandemic but have fallen out of favor now that restrictions have loosened, Target said Tuesday. The company says it had nearly $15.1 billion of inventory as of April 30, the end of the first first fiscal quarter. The amount serves as nearly 50 percent more than that seen just a year ago. Some of the...

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National home price index remained HOT in December, growing at a 18.84% pace. M2 Money YoY is still smoking at 13.11%. All 20 metro areas in the Case-Shiller 20 index grew at 10% or higher YoY with my former home city Phoenix leading the way at 32.5% YoY house price growth. Washington DC, aka Mordor on The Potomac, was in last place at 10.5% YoY. In terms of active inventory of housing, only Phoenix and Columbus Ohio are showing positive growth in active inventory YoY. But even Phoenix and Columbus saw a decline MoM (or month-over-month)....

The banner headline is … US existing home sales declined 4.6% MoM in December. But that isn’t the interesting news. The interesting news is the mystery of the missing housing inventory. While various pundits told us that inventory would be returning … it isn’t. And the median price of existing home sales is up 14.85% YoY with insane Fed stimulus still in play. That was December. What will January bring with rising mortgage rates? Freddie Mac’s 30-year commitment rate rose to 3.56% today. When will housing inventory for sale start to increase? Probably about the same time The Fed ACTUALLY...

There is a lot going on in the US housing market. Excessive monetary stimulus keeping mortgage rates low, historically low inventory available for sale, and FOMO (fear of missing out … on rapidly rising home prices). The Case-Shiller repeat sales index for October is out … and the national home price index “slowed” to 19.08% YoY as mortgage rates rose. Note that available inventory of homes for sales remains very low. By metro area, Phoenix AZ once again leads with 32.3% YoY. Minneapolis MN is the slowest growing metro area in terms of home prices at 11.5% (tied with Chicago,...

Ongoing disruptions in America’s supply chains have prompted manufacturers to review and modify their inventory management systems. Just-in-time (JIT) inventory management, which calls for the right amount of inventory at the right time, has long been the standard. However, just-in-case (JIC), a system which focuses on keeping extra inventory on hand, has recently gained attention. “The question of JIT versus JIC is a question leadership teams the world over are facing,” Billie ‘Akau’ola, a director at Riveron, a national business advisory firm, told The Epoch Times. JIT, which was developed by Japanese firms around the 1970s, has always focused on...

Reports show that wholesale used car prices climbed to an all-time high in September even though dealership inventories have historically low inventory given the high demand for second-hand cars in the supply chain. The Manheim U.S. Used Vehicle Value Index showed that the month-over-month in September increased by 5.3 percent in September, which is the highest rise since April. Over the last year, the index increased by 27.1 percent to 204.8.

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services rose to a record high in August, largely on the back of a rise in imports as businesses continued to build up inventories in response to strong consumer demand. The Commerce Department said in an Oct. 5 statement (pdf) that the trade deficit—the difference between exports and imports of goods and services—rose by 4.2 percent in August, hitting an all-time high of $73.3 billion. Imports rose 1.4 percent to $287 billion, while exports edged up 0.5 percent to $213.7 billion. Consumer goods imports saw a relatively sharp rise of $2.7 billion in...

Boris Johnson is set to U-turn on visas for lorry drivers to allow 5,000 foreign hauliers into the UK after panic-buying gridlocked petrol stations across the country overnight. Motorists ignored Government pleas for calm as they jammed roads and police had to be called in to marshal drivers amid fears that fuel shortages could bring the economy to its knees. The Prime Minister is expected to buckle and grant visas for thousands of foreign drivers in a bid to tackle the shortages, while soldiers will also be drafted in to help at HGV testing sites to clear a backlog of...

Many items destined for retailer shelves this holiday season are hopelessly snarled in the global supply chain. What does that mean to shoppers?