Commercial Printing Outlook: Forecasting a U-turn

"I'm now a little more optimistic than I was about print sales in 2010. They will probably stabilize and we'll see about zero change in nominal printing shipments for the year overall."

Along with a return to economic growth, Davis sees printing sales being buoyed by competitive congressional races next year and a continuation of the hyper-competitive business environment in the retail/catalog market sector. "Before, companies would wait for consumer spending to pick up and then start promoting. Now, it looks like they're doing promotions to try to get sales to pick up," he says.