UPS: "Dramatic slowing in the U.S. economy"

clipped from calculatedrisk.blogspot.com Chief Executive Scott Davis: UPS's first quarter results illustrate the dramatic slowing in the U.S. economy. At our investor conference on March 12th, we told you that volume growth in January had been up 3%. But in the six weeks prior to the conference, it had been negative. We also said if these trends persisted through March, we would not achieve the earnings guidance we had provided for the quarter. [The] trends did continue. Many have become sharply more negative in the last two months. ... The great unknowns are the severity and the duration of the current economic slowdown. Many of our customers have tightened their belts resulting in a shift away from our premium air products to ground shipments. emphasis added Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn: Tradedown was evident across all customer sectors but was most prevalent in retail. This is a tell tale sign of a progressively worsening economic environment Outlook: we see no immediate signs of economic improvement