No Sign of Recovery

This from "Financial Armageddon. Please follow link to original.

Isn't the "recovery" wonderful!!
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No Sign of Recovery

While housing starts, new home sales, existing home sales, and homebuilder sentiment, have largely gone nowhere since the 2006-2009 crash, and supply-and-demand fundamentals continue to support a pessimistic outlook, hope springs eternal -- especially on Wall Street -- that a recovery is around the corner.

Unfortunately, if the reports coming back from those who supply the goods (and services) that tend to be in demand when housing market conditions are healthy (like the ones I've highlighted below) are any guide, the optimists might want to have a rethink.
Appliance manufacturers

"Whirlpool Plummets as Appliance Demand Slips to 2009 Levels" (Bloomberg)

Whirlpool Corp., the world’s largest maker of appliances, sank the most since 2008 after saying it will cut 5,000 jobs and lowering an annual profit forecast by as much as 36 percent with demand in the U.S. falling back to recessionary levels.

...

Whirlpool, which generates about half its revenue outside North America, shipped fewer appliances to every region except Asia in the third quarter. Demand declined as U.S. consumer confidence fell, the sovereign debt crisis accelerated in Europe and inflation slowed growth in emerging markets, Chief Executive Officer Jeff M. Fettig said today in a conference call with analysts.

Recession-Level Demand

Demand for major appliances in the U.S., Whirlpool’s largest market, has fallen back to the “recessionary levels” of 2009, Fettig said. Whirlpool’s shipments in North America may drop as much as 5 percent this year, down from an original forecast of as much as a 2 percent gain, the company said.

“Consumers are trading down to lower price points, housing is still dead, and the consumer is still stressed,” Sprague said, adding that reduced demand is affecting a range of big- ticket appliances, from air conditioners to fridges. “That has had an adverse effect.”
Furniture makers

"Furniture Recovery Stalls as Housing Values, Confidence Sink" (Bloomberg)

The U.S. furniture industry hasn’t emerged from the recession because a “gridlock in housing” has sapped spending on couches and home items, said Furniture Brands International Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ralph Scozzafava.

Revenue at Furniture Brands, the maker of the Broyhill, Lane and Thomasville lines, is projected to drop for a fifth straight year in 2011, to $1.15 billion, according to the average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Demand won’t recover without a rebound in housing sales and consumer confidence, Scozzafava said. Home prices in 20 U.S. cities declined more than forecast in August, spotlighting the housing slump’s drag on the economic recovery.

“From a big-ticket perspective, we’ve never seen housing rush back,” Scozzafava, 52, said in an interview this week at the company’s Thomasville showroom in High Point, North Carolina. “We need housing and consumer confidence to move. We’re still in a recession.”

Consumers are waiting for discounts or not buying at all, according to several manufacturers displaying goods at the International Home Furnishings Center in High Point. More than 2,000 exhibitors show home furnishings twice a year at the market, attracting major chains and independent retailers replenishing their stores.

Consumer Confidence

“If middle-class people do not buy houses, they are not buying furniture,” said Amy Bai, manager of Drayton Hall Furniture, exhibiting Chinese-made dining room tables on the sixth floor. “The past two years have been quiet, this market even more quiet.”
Floor covering manufacturers

"Shaw Industries to Shut Dalton Plant, Cut 270 Jobs" (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

DALTON, Ga. -- [The world's largest carpetmaker,] Shaw Industries, has announced plans to close a Dalton, Ga., carpet plant within the next 60 days, a move that will cost 270 jobs.

Plant 20, which Shaw spokesman Al Scruggs described as "a traditional four-wall carpet plant," currently produces complete rolls of carpet from yarn on Riverbend Drive.

The massive building was one of Shaw's many acquisitions on its road to carpet dominance, but has become the latest casualty of a recession that just won't let go.

Scruggs described the closure as part of the "larger umbrella of right-sizing" due to stiff economic headwinds, though it will ultimately help the company save money as it shifts workers and equipment to other pants.

As with other recent mill closures, Shaw will give some employees the option to choose another job within Shaw, and the Georgia Department of Labor is expected to offer retraining to workers unable to secure another carpet job.

The latest announcement comes after Shaw announced layoffs in Eton and Ringgold in August, on top of the closure of a Chatsworth yarn plant in April.