ACT Research still is predicting 2011 North American Class 8 truck build to wind up at around 252,000, despite some recent good economic news.


"Recently released U.S. economic data have been stronger than anticipated," said Sam Kahan, ACT's chief economist Examples include the declines in initial claims for unemployment, jumps in confidence measures, robust retail sales reports for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the better performance of the U.S. equity markets.

"While favorable, the strength of recent figures does not signal a significant change in the outlook or the U.S. economy or our forecast for the commercial vehicle industry," he added.