Today's headline Durable Goods number came [2], largely as expected, solidly positive. After all, following last month's revised -5.9% sequential collapse, there was only one it could go. However, even so the broad number was largely driven by the usual volatile series: transportation and defense spending. On the other hand, the picture om pure Capital Spending land was mixed, with Cap Goods orders non-defense ex aircraft beating expectations of a 0.5% print at 1.2%, while Shipments missed, dropping from +0.5% to -1.5% and missing expectations of a -0.5% print. There is one big caveat: as usual, April always has been a big down month on a not seasonally adjusted basis. Which means the headline scanning algos were more focused on the ARIMA X 12 adjustments than the underlying data.
So in order to crystalize the underlying trends, we have present the four key data series in a simple year over year basis. The trend is very clear.
Durable Goods:
[3]
Durable Goods ex transports:
[4]
Capex: Core Capital Goods Shipments:
[5]
Capex: Core Capital Goods Orders:
[6]