US Census says manufacturing new orders improved in February. Our analysis disagrees showing deceleration of the rolling averages. The biggest tailwind this month in the seasonally adjusted data was the military.
- Both the Federal Reserve’s Industrial Production and the US Census agree that February was marginally better than January.
- The 3 month moving average of unadjusted new orders continues to decelerate.
3 Month Rolling Average – Unadjusted Manufacturing New Orders (blue line), Inflation Adjusted New Orders from the Unadjusted Data (red line)
US Census Headline:
- The seasonally adjusted manufacturing new orders is up 1.5% month-over-month, and up 0.1% year-to-date.
- Market expected month-over-month growth of -1.6% to +1.0% (consensus -0.7%).
- Manufacturing unfilled orders up 0.3% month-over-month, and up 6.0% year-over-year
Econintersect Analysis:
- Unadjusted manufacturing new orders growth decelerated 1.4% month-over-month, and down 0.6% year-over-year
- Unadjusted manufacturing new orders (but inflation adjusted) down 0.5% year-over-year
- Unadjusted manufacturing unfilled orders growth decelerated 0.9% month-over-month, and up 6.0% year-over-year
- As a comparison to the inflation adjusted new orders data, the manufacturing subindex of the Federal Reserves Industrial Production was growth accelerated 0.1% month-over-month, and up 1.6% year-over-year.
Seasonally Adjusted Manufacturing Value of New Orders – All (red line, left axis), All except Defense (green line, left axis), All with Unfilled Orders (orange line, left axis), and all except transport (blue line, right axis)
From the above graphic, one can see that transport (aircraft – blue line) was the headwind this month. The graph below shows sector growth year-over-year.
