Manufacturing sector activity continues to register surprising improvement. New orders for durable goods increased 0.8% during April (7.1% y/y) following a 3.6% March rise, initially reported as 2.6%. The increase beat expectations for a 0.7% decline in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. New orders for transportation equipment continued to lead the monthly increase with a 2.3% advance (12.3% y/y) which added to even stronger gains in the prior two months. It reflected a 13.1% jump (5.6% y/y) in defense aircraft & parts bookings. Commercial aircraft & parts orders declined 4.1% (22.5% y/y) after two strong monthly increases while motor vehicle & parts bookings were off 1.0% (+0.8% y/y).

Outside of the transportation sector new orders ticked 0.1% higher (4.8% y/y) last month following a 2.9% jump. New orders for electrical equipment and appliances gained 1.1% (4.1% y/y). The rise was offset, however, by a 2.9% drop (+7.2% y/y) in machinery bookings and a 1.1% shortfall (+2.9% y/y) in orders for computers & electronic products. Fabricated metals orders jumped 3.4% (-0.2% y/y) but primary metals orders declined 0.4% (+5.5% y/y). Nondefense capital goods orders declined 1.0% (+6.7% y/y) following a 9.7% surge. Orders excluding aircraft were off 1.2% (+3.9% y/y) after a 4.7% jump.

Shipments of durable goods slipped 0.2% (+4.6% y/y) on the heels of two months of strong increase. Shipments excluding the transportation sector ticked 0.1% higher (5.1% y/y) following a 1.4% advance. Unfilled orders improved 1.0% (8.2% y/y) after a 0.8% gain, while order backlogs outside of the transportation sector rose 0.7% (6.0% y/y) for the second consecutive month. Inventories of durable goods ticked 0.1% higher (4.3% y/y) after March's 0.2% rise. Inventories outside the transportation sector were unchanged (2.2% y/y) following a 0.1% uptick.

The durable goods figures are available in Haver's USECON database. The Action Economics consensus forecast figure is in the AS1REPNA database.