So much for a moderate decline in the economy. As we warned back in February when we noted that the non-seasonally unadjusted collapse in durable goods was historic, now that the aftereffect of a record warm winter is fully gone, the March durable goods data comes in and it was a complete disaster: instead of dropping modestly by 1.7% as the consensus expected, the March actual print was a massive 4.2% decline, worse than the worst Wall Street forecast, or the most since January 2009! And it was not only airplanes as many were expecting (despite Boeing's just announced epic sales): the ex-transportation number was down 1.1%, on expectations of a 0.5% gain; even worse, capital goods new orders slid 0.8% on expectations of a 1% gain. And as usual inventories hit another record high. Overall, a horrendous print which confirms that the entire myth of a recovery in Q1 was warm weather driven, and that about 1% of the 2.5% or so consensus GDP was due to the weather. Expect the downward GDP revisions to come any second. But don't expect the market to react to this news at all: after all if anything, this simply makes NEW QE/LTRO more likely and is to be cheered by all habitual gamblers.
Worse than lowest estimate ( a 2 sigma miss)...
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and Durables Goods Change has missed expectations 3 months in a row to its worst since Jan 09...
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From the report:
New Orders:
New orders for manufactured durable goods in March decreased $8.8 billion or 4.2 percent to $202.6 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This decrease, down two of the last three months, followed a 1.9 percent February increase.
Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 1.1 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 4.6 percent.
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Transportation equipment, also down two of the last three months, had the largest decrease, $7.1 billion or 12.5 percent to $49.7 billion. This was due to nondefense aircraft and parts, which decreased $7.7 billion.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in March, up three of the last four months, increased $2.0 billion or 1.0 percent to $208.8 billion. This followed a 0.3 percent February decrease.
Machinery, up four of the last five months, had the largest increase, $2.0 billion or 6.5 percent to $32.9 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 3.1 percent February increase.
Inventories
Inventories of manufactured durable goods in March, up twenty-seven consecutive months, increased $1.7 billion or 0.4 percent to $375.1 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis and followed a 0.3 percent February increase.
Transportation equipment, also up twenty-seven consecutive months, had the largest increase, $0.8 billion or 0.7 percent to $118.0 billion. This was also at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis.
Finally, February was also worse than previously reported:
Revised February Data
Revised seasonally adjusted February figures for all manufacturing industries were: new orders, $467.5 billion (revised from $468.4 billion); shipments, $462.9 billion (revised from $462.6 billion); unfilled orders, $930.1 billion (revised from $931.1 billion); and total inventories, $616.7 billion (revised from $616.8 billion).
Visually:
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