U.S. and Canadian manufacturers’ sales dropped in April, after increases in February and March, according to sales data released by the Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA) in its Market Outlook Report. Sales in the U.S. dropped by 0.7 percent while Canadian sales dropped 10.4 percent.
 
For U.S. manufacturers, sales for April 2010 are up 12.7 percent compared to sales at this time last year. Canadian manufacturers’ year-to-year sales rose 15.2 percent for the same period.
 
Breaking a three-month neutral position of 5.0, U.S. manufacturers’ confidence gained a tenth of a point, rising to 5.1 on a scale of 1 (very pessimistic) to 10 (outstanding).  Canadian manufacturers also rose from a negative position of 4.8 to a positive outlook of 5.1. 

Month-to-month sales for product categories between March 2010 and April 2010 for Canadian manufacturers are reported below.
 
Canadian Manufacturer Percent Change in Product Sales
(March 2010 vs. April 2010)
 

Product	Percent Change
Gear Products	–14.9%
Mechanical Drive Systems and Other PT Products	–12.1%
Mounted Bearings	–11.8%
Unmounted Bearings	–9.4%
Shaft Couplings	–7.5%
Positioning Systems/Linear Motion Products	–0.3%
Variable Speed Drives	11.2%
Clutches & Brakes	24.4%

The Market Outlook Report is published monthly by the Power Transmission Distributors Association. The full report includes U.S. and Canadian manufacturer data for sales and order trends for mounted bearings, unmounted bearings, variable speed drives, positioning systems/linear motion products, gear products, clutches and brakes, shaft couplings and mechanical drive systems and other PT products. 
www.ptda.org/MOR
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