January 2020 Durable Goods Orders
Submitted by Atlas Indicators Investment Advisors on March 12th, 2020
Durable Goods Orders declined in November 2019 according to the Census Bureau. This measure for orders of wares expected to last three years or longer fell 2.0 percent in the month alone. Year-over-year, the tally is even worse, down 3.8 percent. Ouch! However, it isn’t as bad as the headline suggests.
Sales of new homes improved 1.3 percent to 719,000 units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis in November 2019 according to the Census Bureau. However, the uptick did require one caveat, a 23,000 unit downward revision to October’s tally to 710,000. Year-over-year, transactions are up 16.9 percent.
Durable goods orders made back some of their prior losses in October 2019 according to the Census Bureau. After declining a downwardly revised 1.4 percent in September (originally minus 1.1 percent), they increased 0.6 percent. Unfortunately, this latest uptick was not enough to push the year-over-year statistic into positive territory. As you can see in the chart above, it ha
There wasn’t a lot to celebrate in the September 2019 Retail Sales release from the Census Bureau; however, Atlas will find a way to cheer it on later in this note. But first we must deal with the negatives. The headline is a good place to start as the overall statistic dropped 0.3 percent, giving back most of the prior period’s 0.4 percent gain.
Sales of new homes declined in April 2019 according to the Census Bureau. Falling to an annualized 673,000 units from the upwardly revised count of 723,000 (originally 692,000), this monthly decline is the first of 2019. April’s setback hurt the year-over-year trend which fell to 7.0 percent from 10.6 percent in March.
Orders for wares expected to last longer than three years improved for a third consecutive month in January according to the Census Bureau. Their measure of Durable Goods Orders rose $900 million or 0.4 percent. However, even after three months of increases, this indicator is not yet back to the September 2018 level because the 4.3 percent drop in October’s reading has yet to