Fisher Investments MarketMinder: The Industrials Evolution

Originally published by Fisher Investments MarketMinder on: 4/4/2008

The 18th century’s Industrial Revolution ushered in an explosion of social change and improvements in technology, communication, transportation, and manufacturing. The Industrials sector today echoes the Industrial Revolution’s spirit, though less dramatic and more evolutionary than revolutionary.

The Industrials sector is still comprised of sub-industries facilitating communication, transportation, and distribution. We rarely “see” Industrials in action—Industrials products aren’t generally on store shelves—but they’re the driving force behind much of today’s global economic activity. In the US, trains move 70% of all domestically produced automobiles, 40% of freight transportation, 30% of the nation’s grain harvest, and 65% of coal (producing half of the nation’s energy)! Domestic freight hauled by trucks was 10.7 billion tons in 2006.* The first freight ships carried only 59 containers, stacked two-high on the deck. Today’s mega-carrier container ships are a quarter mile long and can transport 14 million cubic feet of cargo. Over the past 40 years, US maritime, railroad, and trucking industries have pursued advancements in intermodal transportation and in the movement of goods domestically and abroad . . . .

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