Strong Factory Orders From June Not Given Much Thought

What stands out about this Census Bureau report is that the 1.8% increase translates in real dollars to a gain of $8.7 billion up to $478.5 billion.

Inventories rose by $3.6 billion, or 0.6%, to $653.6 billion. This reading has now been up in four of the past five months. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.35, unchanged from May.

Shipments rose 0.5%, or $2.2 billion, to $483.5 billion. That follows two consecutive monthly decreases. On unfilled orders, the report said:

Unfilled orders, up following two consecutive monthly decreases, increased less than $0.1 billion or virtually unchanged to $1.1947 trillion. This followed a 0.5 percent May decrease. The unfilled orders to shipments ratio was 6.94, down from 6.99 in May.

Due to a lag in the data, being from June in this case, the factory orders report each month rarely has much influence over the financial markets. In fact, this June report is even on the heels of the Commerce Department’s first look at second-quarter GDP.

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