HARDI’s monthly TRENDS report shows average sales for HARDI distributor members increased 12.2% in February.
The average annualized growth for the 12 months through February 2018 is 6.7%.
“Sales were light last February when it was warmer than normal in six of our seven economic regions,” HARDI Market Research & Benchmarking Analyst Brian Loftus said. “Five of our regions experienced more heating degree days in February this year than 2017.”
“The US economy is surging with US gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2017 up by 2.5% over the previous year, while US industrial production was up 1.8% year over year in December,” HARDI Senior Economist Connor Lokar said. “We can expect a strong macroeconomy in the coming one to two quarters, however that comes with its challenges as inflation is picking up and the Federal Reserve has matched that with ongoing interest rate increases, most recently another 25 basis-point increase this week.”
“The days sales outstanding, a measure of how quickly customers pay their bills, is near 46 days,” Loftus said. “This is more than a day faster than 2016 and almost two days better than 2015.”
