ACT Research Co is maintaining its mildly pessimistic outlook for the US economy, according to the December 2011 issue of the ACT North American Commercial Vehicle Outlook, published by the company.
“Recently released US economic data have been stronger than anticipated,” said Sam Kahan, ACT’s chief economist. “Examples include the declines in initial claims for unemployment, jumps in confidence measures, robust retail sales reports for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the better performance of the US equity markets. While favorable, the strength of recent figures does not signal a significant change in the outlook or the US economy or our forecast for the commercial vehicle industry.”
ACT expects around 252,000 Class 8 units built in 2011.