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Custer: Oh yeah. I don't know if you've ever seen a product we have that we call Business Outlook, which is about 1,300 charts. We track the economy and electronic equipment by sector, and we track a whole bunch of companies. That's how we get our growth rates by equipment sector. For example, we add up all the computer companies’ revenues, net income and inventories on a quarterly basis from their financial reports. I haven't added up how many there are, but it's close to a thousand companies that we track every quarter just to analyze what the industry is doing by sector.
Matties: Are these reports part of the package that you sell to your customers?
Custer: Yes, they get a PowerPoint with charts and all the data they then can use in their own business plan. We also have a lot of time series. Things like leading indicators that companies can use to compare their business performance to their competitors and customers.
Matties: And if someone's interested in taking part in that service, they can just go to your website?
Custer: Yeah, or just send me an email. I'm speaking every day here at productronica, as well. I was going to offer to send a copy of the charts to anyone who reads this and wants an example of the talk. If they send an email to walt@custerconsulting.com, I'll send them the whole presentation, and I can tell them how to get it on an ongoing basis if they’d like.
Matties: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should share with the industry?
Custer: You mean the dirty side [laughs]? No, I'm just looking at this as a modest growth year. I think China's going to come out of it this year, but it's still negative. The U.S. is growing very modestly. Europe is still hanging in there. I guess beyond what we have discussed, the thing that worries me a lot is geo-political unrest. That could screw things up big time. But other than that, equipment demand is holding; it's just not expanding very rapidly.
Matties: You know, I go to a lot of these shows like the display show in Santa Clara and I see all these great products, like the TV screens and all of that. It just seems like there's so many opportunities for people to spend money on electronics these days.
Custer: Yes, and they're doing it. I mean the ultra-HD (4K) TVs certainly are something that is interesting. I don't have one but they look really nice.
Matties: They do. Walt, thank you so much for spending time with us and giving an update on what you’re seeing.
Custer: Thank you, Barry.
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