Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Mike Harrison from First Analysis.
Mike Harrison - First Analysis
Good morning.
Joseph Scaminace
Good morning, Mike.
Mike Harrison - First Analysis
In terms of your commentary Steve, on the end use markets it looks like in a lot of cases you're seeing that destocking is coming to an end or you saw the worst of the destocking in Q1. What are you seeing in those markets that's giving you confidence that you can say that?
Stephen Dunmead
If we look at sequential demand and we don't have -- it's not like we've got visibility in most of these markets from the order book out six months but for what the near-term that we can see that customer demand is coming back and we do have an outlook from our customers and we've got pretty good information about their current inventory levels.
And again, I want to make it clear that when I was talking about destocking that was versus the Q1 first quarter levels.
Mike Harrison - First Analysis
Do you feel like visibility in general has improved or are there some markets where you still feel like visibility is pretty weak?
Stephen Dunmead
It's a mix bag Mike. Its certainly -- if you look at anything associated with the automotive industry I think the messages are pretty consistent. In electronics, I think that the biggest questions are certainly as I said we've seen this rebound in Asia after about the January-February timeframe which has actually continued and how much of that is simply due to rebound in the economy or the agent stimulus packages. But certainly the stimulus packages in Taiwan and in China had a significant impact, positive impact on those markets.
Joseph Scaminace
Mike, let me also say that the fact of the matter is, we're not getting all of a sudden a huge rush of orders into the company right now. That gives us great confidence that this thing has rebounded. On the other hand, I think the massive amount of inventory reductions that have taken place throughout the channel has lead us to believe, that at some point, with -- as Steve mentioned, the Chinese stimulus package right now, there will be us chasing demand at some point. Because the pipelines are virtually dry.
Stephen Dunmead
And I think the best example of that Mike would be Ken mentioned powder metallurgy and certainly the number of cutting tools globally being used is not down 60 some percent. And so that was massive destocking whether it was from the end user like General Motors clear back up to the cobalt supplier like us, and so certainly that's the kind of thing that -- that kind of destocking just can not continue.
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