Durable Goods Orders Jump

New orders for manufactured durable goods rose by 3.02% in September to a new all-time-high level of $169.031 billion. This is hard on the heels of an even bigger advance of 5.09% in August.

Some of the major contributors to the September total were:

Transportation Equipment $43.2 billion
Electronic and Other Electrical Equipment $28.1 billion
Industrial Machinery and Equipment $31.7 billion
Primary Metals $15.0 billion
Defense Orders $7.0 billion

After steadily rising from early 1991 until last January, new orders for durable goods went into a gradual slide, dropping 5.03% between January and July. But, the combined jump of 8.26%, during the past two months, more than made up for this temporary slump.

What's it all mean? It is never wise to make judgements about the future of the economy based on the short term behavior of a single indicator. But, if the only indicator we had was new orders for durable goods, the data for the last two months might lead to the conclusion that we are heading into a period of renewed economic expansion.

Byline: Lafferty (MF Merlin)