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Fisher Investments has largely ignored containers and packaging so far. It's such a tiny part of the sector Fisher Investments feels that you really don't need to worry about it. The industry is generally considered to be defensive, with relatively inelastic demand through economic cycles. In other words, Fisher Investments research found that demand for this industry's products remains about the same in good times and bad. The main reason is because the largest segment of the industry is food and beverages. For example, in 2003, an estimated 40 percent of containers were used for packaging food and 20 percent for beverages.* One of the industry's most important drivers is its production costs, so many packaging firms have relocated manufacturing plants to emerging market countries with cheaper operating environments. High oil and natural gas prices are also a negative because they're heavily used to produce two of the industries' largest segments, plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Updated news on the industry can be found at Packaging Today (www.packagingtoday.com). Given the amount of paper used in packaging, this site also often has useful updates on the Paper & Forest Products industry.
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