October Durable Goods Surprise to the Upside

It is interesting that the Commerce Department showed that increased demand for machinery offset a decline in auto demand and airplanes. We were expecting this number also to have been hampered a bit by the hurricane. Orders for nondefense capital goods orders outside of aircraft rose by 1.7%, and that was said to be a high since before summer. Motor vehicle demand was down by 1.6% in October. Civilian aircraft is highly volatile, but that fell by some 5.8%. Defense orders were lower by 7.1%, but that followed huge gains before as orders were coming in ahead of the expected defense spending cuts.

Futures remain in negative territory this morning: Dow futures are down 5 points and S&P 500 futures are down by 0.2 points.

JON C. OGG