Craig Arnold - Eaton Corp. Plc
Management
I think it's been tough to get a clear read. And that's why perhaps you're seeing so many conflicting data points and so many companies commenting on different signals. And today, as I mentioned, the C30 report is a good proxy, the NEMA data is a good proxy. And the NEMA data was pretty much consistent with what we saw in the C30 report. We saw weakening in many of the non-resi end markets in Q3. And that's really what's played into a lot of our thinking around Q4 and perhaps playing into 2017. So we still see, if you think about a walkthrough markets, we think the industrial piece, the manufacturing sector, things that have to do with capital spending, continue to be weak. And we see those markets to be down kind of low to mid single-digit this year. Now, oil and gas continues to be weak? Yep, the rig count has increased, but we've not yet seen any of that play through to any strength in oil and gas. In fact, the data was a little bit weaker in Q3 than it had been year-to-date. And so we continue to see weakness on the industrial side of the house, but, having said that, we're seeing strength on the consumer side. Residential housing, the lighting market continues to do well, the Vehicle markets around the world continue to perform well, the light end of non-resi construction, things that are really the small strip malls and really that are, I'd say, almost attached to household formations. So it really depends upon what part of the economy you're serving, and there's pockets of strength and then there's pockets of weakness, and unfortunately today, the weakness is slightly outweighing the positives. But it really is two different pictures depending upon which part of the economy you're sitting on and I know your question is, where is it headed? Which direction is it pointed towards? And at this point I'd say it's a very confusing picture.