March 01, 2012
Actually, it wasn’t secret, it’s right here on the Census Bureau’s website, but for some reason no one in the media thought it was worth reporting a drop in durable goods orders of 4.0 percent in January. I am always the first to say that we should not make too much of any single report. Monthly data are often erratic and if one report seems out of line with most other data, odds are that the report was driven by some flukish factor or just sampling error.
Nonetheless, this is a big drop that can’t be explained by the usual suspects. New orders excluding transportation (airplane orders are especially erratic) fell by 3.2 percent. Excluding military goods, new orders fell by 4.5 percent, so this is not a result of the peace dividend. The weather goes the wrong here since January was unusually warm this year meaning that businesses were not shut by snow storms. New orders for non-defense capital goods (i.e. investment) fell by 6.3 percent, or 4.5 percent if we exclude aircraft.
In short, this is an unambiguously bad report. My view is that it is probably an anomaly. We will perhaps see upward revisions in the second report for January or a big bounceback in the February numbers. But, this report definitely deserved some attention. It might seem rude to spoil the celebrations over our 3.0 percent growth rate last quarter, but that is what reporters are supposed to do.
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