There's another mixed bag of financial results this week, but the trend appears to be downward - for the time being anyway. In Europe, the USA and Asia, sales volumes are down. Some manufacturers have managed to keep stock moving, but clearly at slimmed down margins. So there can be no doubt that this has to be a great time to be buying. Pricing has never been sharper, and thanks to a host of recent technological innovations, products have never been better. Of course, you need to be confident about your own business performance before you splash out, but that's another story ...