February 2018 Manufacturing New Orders Improved

US Census says manufacturing new orders improved. Our analysis shows the rolling averages declined.

Analyst Opinion of Census Manufacturing Sales

According to the seasonally adjusted data, it was aircraft which accounted for much of the increase. The data in this series is noisy so I would rely on the unadjusted 3 month rolling averages which declined but remains in a long term improvement trend.

Remember the headline numbers are not inflation adjusted..

Backlog of orders continues in expansion year-over-year. And this data is not inflation adjusted which mean backlog is contracting.

US Census Headline:

The seasonally adjusted manufacturing new orders is up 1.2 % month-over-month.

Market expected (from Bloomberg / Econoday) month-over-month growth of 1.3 % to 1.9 % (consensus +1.7 %).

Manufacturing unfilled orders increased 0.2 % month-over-month, and up 2.2 % year-over-year.

Econintersect Analysis:.

Unadjusted manufacturing new orders growth decelerated 1.2 % month-over-month, and up 7.4 % year-over-year.

Unadjusted manufacturing new orders (but inflation adjusted) up 3.5 % year-over-year.

Three month rolling new order rolling averages decelerated 0.5 % month-over-month, and is up 7.8 % year-over-year.

Unadjusted manufacturing unfilled orders growth accelerated 0.3 % month-over-month, and up 2.2 % year-over-year

As a comparison to the inflation adjusted new orders data, the manufacturing subindex of the Federal Reserves Industrial Production growth up 0.1 % month-over-month, and up 2.0 % 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)