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Economy in Brief
Italian Consumer Confidence Remains Hammered Down
Italy's consumer confidence fell month-to-month...
U.S. Current Account Deficit Deepens to Record in Q1'22
The U.S. current account deficit deepened to $291.4 billion during Q1'22...
Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Index Declines Further in June But Remains Positive
The Kansas City Fed reported that its manufacturing sector business activity index fell to 12 in June...
U.S. Unemployment Claims Edged Down
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended June 18 declined by 2,000 to 229,000...
U.S. Energy Prices Reverse Earlier Gains
Retail gasoline prices surged to $5.01 per gallon (63.1% y/y)...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Sandy Batten June 4, 2021
• April retreat less than half March gains.
• April shipments added to March surge.
• Order backlogs and inventories continued to rise.
New orders for manufactured goods fell 0.6% m/m (+34.1% y/y) in April following an upwardly revised 1.4% m/m gain in March (initially 1.1%). The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a 0.3% decline. This was the first monthly decline since April 2020.
Orders in durable goods industries fell 1.3% m/m (+52.2% y/y) in April from an upwardly revised 1.3% m/m increase in March (initially 0.8%). Transportation sector orders slumped 6.6% m/m (+187.9% y/y) in April on top of a downwardly revised 3.1% monthly decline in March. Electrical equipment orders slipped 0.7% m/m in April. Apart from these two declines, orders rose in the other major categories in April.
Nondurable goods orders, which equal shipments, edged up 0.1% m/m (+19.4% y/y) in April on top of a slightly upwardly revised 1.6% monthly gain in March. Shipments from petroleum refineries fell 1.2% m/m in April following a downwardly revised 3.4% m/m increase in March. The weakest performance in April was posted by textile mills, which slumped 2.0% m/m after having risen 3.6% m/m in March. Beverage and tobacco products shipments fell 1.7% m/m. By contrast, leather product shipments jumped up 7.0% m/m.
Shipments of durable goods rose 0.6% m/m (37.8% y/y) in April versus a 2.7% m/m gain in March. Transportation shipments slipped 0.4% m/m in April following a downwardly revised 3.5% m/m rise in March. Shipments of nonmetallic mineral products and shipments of furniture each fell 0.3% m/m. Primary metals shipments rose 2.7% m/m on top of a 4.8% jump in March. Shipments of wood products increased 1.3%, adding to their 4.9% gain in March.
Inventories of manufactured products rose 0.3% m/m (3.6% y/y) in April following a slightly upwardly revised 0.8% m/m gain in March. Durable goods inventories increased 0.5% m/m (2.3% y/y) following a 1.1% rise in March. Transportation equipment inventories rose 0.6% m/m, while excluding transportation, inventories gained 0.3% m/m. Auto inventories strengthened 1.6% m/m. Nondurable goods inventories were unchanged in April (+5.7% y/y). A 1.3% m/m decline in petroleum inventories offset small increases in most other major categories.
The value of unfilled orders rose 0.2% m/m (-2.9% y/y) in April after a 0.5% m/m gain in March. Unfilled orders in the transportation sector fell 0.5% m/m and excluding transportation, backlogs jumped 1.5%. Apart from the decline in transportation backlogs, all other major categories experienced increased unfilled orders in April.
The factory sector data are available in USECON database.
Factory Sector (% chg) - NAICS Classification | Apr | Mar | Feb | Apr Y/Y | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New Orders | -0.6 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 34.1 | -10.4 | -0.2 | 5.7 |
Shipments | 0.4 | 2.1 | -1.8 | 28.2 | -6.7 | -2.6 | 6.0 |
Unfilled Orders | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.8 | -2.9 | -8.2 | 10.2 | -1.6 |
Inventories | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 3.6 | -0.5 | 5.3 | 2.8 |