Durable Goods Orders Mimic Recession in July

We would advise that the headline may be worse than the overall report might indicate. Durable goods ex-transportation came in at -0.6%. That is still under the 0.3% gain expected by Bloomberg, but it is at least not as far off the mark and nowhere as deep in the red. The seasonally adjusted figure on the headline report came to $226.6 billion in July, according to the Commerce Department.

Monday’s report signals a dismal end to a trend. Durable goods orders were up by 3.9% in June, after having been up by 5.5% back in May. Those two months had huge gains in transportation orders, and manufacturing reports had been mixed. Civilian aircraft orders were down by half in this current report.