“While recovery is slow, we fully expect electronics to provide sequential growth in the next quarter, including project backlog ramp-ups.”

In context

“is said, these positive trends contrast with most of EMEA and parts of APAC, primarily China. The combination of geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty has suppressed large ticket purchases, which tend to correlate with industrial markets such as steel, glass and chemicals. Currently, we don't see any meaningful catalyst to reverse this trend for the remainder of this year and thus have embedded this view in our guidance. We believe this is the most prudent position to take at this time. Conversely, consumer-related end markets are slightly positive versus second quarter with continued growth in food and beverage and stability in health care. Electronics was up high single-digit over previous year. As expected, recovery in electronics continues to move forward, but at a lower clip. While recovery is slow, we fully expect electronics to provide sequential growth in the next quarter, including project backlog ramp-ups. Taken together, these trends point to a stagnant or slightly declining economic backdrop. However, a combination of actions on pricing, productivity and costs, combined with contractually secured project backlog and robust stock repurchases continue to support our ability to deliver shareholder value regardless of the challenges. In fact, our backlog in the third quarter hit $10 billion as we signed our largest sale of gas project in company history. This contract with Dow Chemical is a testament to our disciplined investment approach to pursue and win projects in our core competence of reliable and cost-effective industrial gas supply. Slide 4 provides more details on this $2 billion plus investment fall Dow is embarking on an ambitious project to achieve net zero Scope 1 and 2 carbon em”