Today we’re excited to announce the launch of Panjiva Trends, which will give you insight into the trajectory of U.S. imports of various products.  Type in any product, and you will see how U.S. imports of that product have been trending over the last few years — up through the end of the most recent month.  You will also see which countries are shipping more of the product compared to last year and which countries are shipping less.  Panjiva Trends will be free for the next month; all that we ask if that you tell us how we can make it more useful to you.

In anticipation of the launch of Trends, our research team took a look at which products are trending positive this holiday season, and which products are trending negative.

The winners:  Snuggie, Zhu Zhu Pet, Toy Story, Chocolate Truffles, Hand Magnifier, Hand Sanitizer, Booklight, and Coal.

The losers:  Batman, Digital Picture Frame, Hannah Montana, Bratz, and High School Musical.

Notes for the data junkies… 

• Panjiva Trends is based on waterborne shipments to the United States, so items coming in by air are not captured.
• Our algorithms have structured the data drawn from the unstructured descriptions of the shipments, so you can use Boolean operators in your searches.

The word from Panjiva’s research team: there was a slight uptick in global trade activity during October. Specifically, from September to October, there was a 3% increase in the number of global manufacturers shipping to the U.S. market. Similarly, there was a 2% increase in the number of U.S. companies receiving waterborne shipments from global manufacturers.

Those hoping for a major holiday bounce are likely to be disappointed by this new data; on the other hand, it’s good to see that last month’s slide did not continue.  A few notes:

• Last year, we also saw a slight uptick from September to October.
• The percentage of significant manufacturers on the Panjiva Watch List declined slightly from 27% to 26%.
• Similarly, the percentage of significant buyers having done business with a Panjiva Watch List supplier in the preceding three months declined slightly from 37% to 36%.

Methodological notes for the data junkies:

• Manufacturers that have suffered a 50% or greater decline in volume shipped to American customers in the most recent three month period, versus the same period a year ago, are on the Panjiva Watch List.
• “Significant manufacturers” are companies that have sent 10 or more shipments to American customers within the last year.  As of the end of October, there were 86,254 significant manufacturers.
• “Significant buyers” are U.S. companies that have received 10 or more shipments from overseas manufacturers within the last year.  As of the end of August, there were 73,987 significant buyers.

Over the weekend, CIT filed for bankruptcy. This is the latest chapter in a saga that has significantly reduced the availability of capital for a wide variety of businesses.  The general consensus seems to be that the bankruptcy isn’t going to make things much worse than they already are, and insiders point out that strong businesses should be able to get capital from sources other than CIT.

A couple of months ago, Panjiva’s clients began asking if we could help them identify which companies are exposed to CIT risk.  Sure enough, we were able to use our data to spot companies that have a relationship with CIT.  Below, you can see how we’ve built this into Panjiva’s intelligence platform.  Note the “CIT Relationship” refinement on the left.