Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

Manufacturing Soft Landing? Dare to Dream

Earnings from bellwether Fastenal suggest the industrial economy, while slowing, may avoid the cliff.

October 11, 2019 at 1:18 PM UTC

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

The manufacturing slump is real, but it may not be as bad as feared. — The manufacturing slump is real, but it may not be as bad as feared.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Maybe things aren’t so dire in manufacturing after all. At least not yet.

Fastenal Co., a distributor of factory-floor basics, unofficially kicked off industrial earnings season on Friday and the numbers were better than analysts had expected on all major fronts, including overall revenue and gross margin. That fueled a pop of as much as 10% in Fastenal shares in early trading that probably also had something to do with the heavy short interest that accumulated in the stock heading into the earnings release. Fastenal’s better-than-feared results likely also contributed to a pre-market rally in the XLI Industrial Select Sector SPDR fund as investors rethought their expectations for a truly ugly batch of third-quarter industrial earnings.