New orders for manufactured durable goods in February increased $5.5 billion or 3.4 percent to $165.6 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase follows six consecutive monthly decreases, including a 7.3 percent January decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 3.9 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 1.7 percent.
-- This is the first increase in 7 months.
-- January's orders dropped hard -- 7.3%
In other words, if we're looking for a trend, it's down. This would be the equivalent of a bear market rally.
In addition, the non-seasonally adjusted numbers for total year to date new orders are down 28.4% -- hardly a great situation. Excluding transportation, that number is -22.4%. In other words, transportation isn't the problem; manufacturing as a whole is.
The uptick is of course welcome news. However, after placing it in context, we learn we have a long way to go before we've seen an industrial rebound.
1 comment:
January numbers were revised significantly downward, which accounted for the February rise.
It is likely February's numbers will be revised downward when March figures are released.
Before any accounting for inflation, February's orders were down by 28.9% from February 2008, the worst monthly YOY result in the current downturn.
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