Mannerisms

It seems underlying demand is strong, weakening shipments from component suppliers were the result of swelling inventory, but the inventory problem is almost worked through.

It is a curious phenomenon that analysts love to keep changing their forecasts throughout the year. Sometimes they'll shave less than a full percentage point off their forecast for the year and publish that as though it's something important.

Even a month's figures are often enough to give some analysts the heeby-jeebies and bring them out in a cold sweat of re-forecasting.

Far better to make a forecast on Jan 1 and stick to it. If you're wrong, hey-ho who cares? No one's going to make huge decisions based on these forecasts anyway.

But the forecasts can be unsettling and this is where one can take issue with the analysts. The WSTS is an industry body, paid for and staffed by industry people, so what does it mean by cutting its recent forecast for 2007 from over * per cent to 2.3 per cent?

All it does it cause ripples of uncertainty and doubt when, like any volatile endeavour, the industry needs confidence and boldness.

Let's face it, one quarter's figures, let along one month's, don't mean much, so let's not fall into a fit of the girlish vapours and hysterical extrapolation next time inventory goes a little high.

It takes more than one swallow to make a summer, let alone a year.