Commercial Printing Outlook -- Build Up in Down Time

Hitting a Moving Target

Both industry economists were again looking at revising their economic and industry sales forecasts heading into December. Davis says that a complicating factor for the industry outlook is that printing sales lead the economy when it is in decline and lag in a recovery.

NAPL has been calling for industry sales to come in at around -2 percent in 2008, with the decline continuing through 2009 at somewhere between -1 and -3 percent. Paparozzi now believes sales are more likely to fall into the lower end of that range.