Comment – Baby, its cold outside

I’m not sure we will get the white Christmas which children of all ages have been looking forward to, but its still a good time to take stock and reflect on the year.

Yes, its maybe becoming more difficult on the basis of declining sales, higher than usual stock levels and interest rate rises, but lets have a look at where we have been.

On the back of historically all time high machinery sales and profitability, the industry has massively invested in people, technology and production capacity. In short we’ve never had it so good, and whilst the machinery supply change will never have faced such rapid changes it is from a comparatively strong footing.

So what’s worth a read this week?  CEMA’s barometer isn’t looking so clever (seehttps://www.cema-agri.org/market-trends/business-barometer/1045-december-2023-business-climate-in-deep-recession  Although manufacturers pessimism seems to be constrained to the short term and the long term outlook, whilst not perhaps bullish, certainly is not overly negative either.

Fuel prices are back to where they were 2 years ago https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67729428   plus if you can’t sleep you can read about the editors new role here: https://eurageng.eu/news/EurAgEng-New-SG-Andy-Newbold

I think for many this will be a year to look back on as being a relatively good one, its  too early to describe it as a ‘vintage year’ or that this year was one of the ‘golden years’ for the business.  I suspect that when the dust has settled in say 5 years time, we may all get a bit misty eyed with the memory (and have forgotten those painful episodes!).

All the best

Andy

PS.. As Christmas approaches, and holidays are allowed (you know who you are), the editor reserves the right to consume too much mulled wine, and there may, or may not be some seasonal musings next weekend. All the best for Christmas, enjoy some time off and I will catch you on the other side.