Without having seen Grainger's (GWW) results yet, I feel pretty confident in assuming that Fastenal (FAST) will come out of this quarter with the best set of results among the large industrial distributors. Although Fastenal is seeing worse gross margin pressure than MSC Industrial (MSM), they're growing their business more effectively and offsetting gross margin pressures with strong execution on operating expense items - something MSC has long promised, but that Fastenal actually delivers.
I don't think there's much argument now that industrial end-markets are slowing, and so too