Durable Goods Not Weak Enough to Alter GDP Estimates, but Revisions Look Worse

New orders were down $2.9 billion, or down 1.2%, to $231.1 billion in September. Bloomberg had a consensus of a drop of 1.0%, so there is only a 0.2% differential.

The Census Bureau further said that this followed a 3.0% decrease in August, but that is worse than the drop of 2.0% that had previously been forecast by the Census.

Excluding transportation, new orders were down by 0.4%, and excluding defense, new orders were down by 2.0%. Transportation equipment was shown to have led the decrease, down by $2.2 billion or 2.9% to $75.5 billion.

The key nondefense new orders for capital goods was the sore spot in September. This decreased by $5.9 billion (or 7.6%) to $72.2 billion. Shipments were down 0.6% to $79.8 billion, unfilled orders fell by 1% to $752.2 billion and inventories increased 0.1% to $176.2 billion.

The revised seasonally adjusted August figures for all manufacturing industries were as follows:

• New orders, $471.3 billion (revised from $473.0 billion)
• Shipments, $479.4 billion (revised from $480.1 billion)
• Unfilled orders, $1.1941 trillion (revised from $1.1950 trillion)
• Total inventories, $647.8 billion (revised from $648.4 billion)

ALSO READ: The 10 Most Profitable Companies in the World