The Commerce Department is out with its report on durable goods orders for the month of September. We would caution that durable goods is one of the most volatile reports out there. The headline report showed a gain of 9.9%, but the report on an ex-transportation showed that the gain was only 2.0%. Bloomberg was calling for new orders to be up 7.0% in September, with a range of 3.5% to 12.1%. The problem is that the ex-transportation reading was expected to be up by only 1.0% and that range was 0.1% to 2.0%. Dow Jones was looking for 7.8% as the headline consensus estimate.
The August report was lowered only by 0.1% to -13.1% from -13.2%. The ex-transportation report from the month of August was revised to -2.1% from -1.6%.
Durable goods orders reflect new orders placed with manufacturers for immediate and future delivery of factory hard goods. These are deemed to be the larger-ticket items that have a long life or three years and longer. Again, this is one of the more volatile economic readings with large swings up and down.
JON C. OGG
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