The New Year.
So what’s in store for our industry this year, I suspect it will have its ups and downs has the European problems with our neighbour’s overseas sort themselves out. In a nutshell I expect the UK stock market will continue to demonstrate bouts of extreme volatility whilst Europe continues to deliberate on how to sort out their financial crisis. We are however, cautiously optimistic for UK business corporations which have a significant amount of their earnings driven from overseas operations, given the already healthy state of their balance sheets.
My view however is that we will enter the new year on much the same note as we will go out on, and in the short term this should not be a bad thing. Maybe the FTSE will finish '5' to '6' but that’s speculation and we will just have to wait an see. For installers in the gate automation industry, I see some improvments for a change this year, but the UK market forecast is set to slow in pace for installers at the start of the year, there should be some improvements from spring onwards and it would be nice to see the trend flow through towards the back end of the year. The down side to all of this is that consumers, as like installers, are however still struggling with the idea of spending in the current climate, and are hanging onto their hard earned cash.
A possible reduction in the fuel duties would go a long way in helping small businesses, it would also help to bring some confidence back to the market place. 'a benefit for all'
Regards.
John AESIF