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Economy in Brief
U.S. Consumer Confidence Deteriorates Further in June
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index weakened 4.4% (-23.4% y/y) in June...
U.S. FHFA House Prices Continued to Rise in April
The FHFA House Price Index increased 1.6% during April...
U.S. Advance Trade Deficit Narrowed Slightly in May
The advance estimate of the U.S. international trade deficit in goods narrowed to $104.3 billion in May...
U.S. Energy Prices Decline
The AAA retail price of gasoline fell seven cents to $4.94 per gallon (+60.4% y/y) in the week ended June 24...
French Consumer Worries Intensify in the Wake of Russia Attack
French confidence is weak in June 2022...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller September 2, 2020
• Factory orders strength is broad-based.
• Motor vehicle shipments are exceptionally strong.
• Inventory decumulation is widespread.
New orders for manufactured goods increased 6.4% (-6.2% y/y) during July and repeated the June gain, revised from 6.2%. A 5.8% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Orders for durable goods increased 11.4% (-4.8% y/y), revised from 11.2% in the advance report issued last month. Transportation equipment orders rose 35.7% (-12.4% y/y). Motor vehicle orders improved 9.4% (3.1% y/y) and defense aircraft bookings strengthened by three-quarters (+16.8% y/y). Electrical equipment & appliance orders rose 4.1%, but fell by the same degree y/y. Orders for fabricated metals rose strongly while machinery orders gained 2.0% (-3.2% y/y).
Nondurable goods orders, which equal shipments, rose 1.8% in July (-7.5% y/y). Shipments from petroleum refineries strengthened 7.5% (-33.8% y/y) as prices rose. Food product shipments edged 0.7% higher (1.2% y/y). Textile product shipments declined 2.8% (-13.4% y/y) but apparel shipments improved 1.0% (-4.0% y/y). Shipments of basic chemicals rose 1.1% (0.6% y/y) after rising 2.7% in June. Shipments of durable goods strengthened 7.5% (-1.3% y/y) as transportation shipments surged 17.9% (-2.9% y/y) with strength in the motor vehicle sector. Factory shipments excluding transportation rose 2.2% (-4.8% y/y). Electrical equipment & appliance shipments rose 2.0% (-4.3% y/y) for a second straight month while shipments of furniture improved 0.7% (-1.0% y/y).
Order backlogs declined 0.8% (-5.5% y/y), off for the fourth month in the last five. Transportation backlogs fell 1.1% (-7.7% y/y). Excluding the transportation sector, unfilled orders improved 0.1% (-0.3% y/y) for a second straight month. Order backlogs of electrical equipment & appliances rose 1.1% (4.9% y/y). Unfilled orders for computers & electronic products eased 0.1% (+0.9% y/y). Machinery order backlogs rose marginally (-0.4% y/y) for a second month.
Inventories of manufactured products fell 0.5% in July (-1.0% y/y). The decline was the first in three months. Transportation sector inventories eased slightly (+10.2% y/y), while outside transportation, inventories were off 0.6% (-3.7% y/y). Furniture inventories fell 0.8% (-3.9% y/y) and electrical equipment & appliance inventories eased 0.2% (-0.5% y/y). Computer & electronic product inventories fell 0.5% (+0.5% y/y) while machinery inventories declined 1.1% (-3.8% y/y), off for the sixth month this year. Inventories of nondurable products declined 0.2% (-4.5% y/y) as petroleum refinery inventories eased 0.2% (-21.9% y/y). Apparel inventories edged 0.1% lower (-1.8% y/y) but food product inventories improved 0.1% (-1.9% y/y).
The factory sector figures are available in Haver's USECON database. The expectation figure is in the AS1REPNA database.
Factory Sector (% chg) - NAICS Classification | Jul | Jun | May | Jul Y/Y | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New Orders | 6.4 | 6.4 | 7.7 | -6.2 | -0.2 | 6.9 | 5.6 |
Shipments | 4.6 | 10.0 | 3.0 | -4.4 | 0.9 | 6.7 | 4.4 |
Unfilled Orders | -0.8 | -1.4 | 0.0 | -5.5 | -1.9 | 3.8 | 2.7 |
Inventories | -0.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 | -1.0 | 2.8 | 3.7 | 4.3 |