Anyone looking to buck the “dollar’s” direction in September has been sorely disappointed by almost every single data point so far. The latest is durable goods which was even more ugly across-the-board than August – and that includes the rather stark downward revisions for last month. Year-over-year, new orders (ex transportation) fell almost 6% after declining a revised 3.74% in August; shipments have begun to track orders, as expected, falling 3.59% in September for the third consecutive month of contraction and four of the past five. Capital goods, a proxy for business capex, were even worse: new orders dropped just shy of 8% while shipments declined by more than 3%, forming what looks to be a steep downward slope.

In terms of accumulating weakness, the 6-month averages in those series are either worse than the 2012 trough or matching it. It was that feebleness that surely convinced the Fed to engage in a third QE (and then another when the downside remained stubborn) at that time, a rather poignant comparison to the interest rate debate at the FOMC taking place today. Economists and policymakers have been at great pains to downplay the significance in manufacturing retrenchment as either unimportant or “transitory”, but the trajectory of the economy provided by this persistent downslope will not allow it.

Treasury prices are higher after the US durable goods orders report showed doubt about the economy’s performance during the third quarter. While September’s decline in orders wasn’t as steep as expected, prior months were revised much lower. This is leading investors to bring down their estimates of U.S. third-quarter economic growth, says Credit Agricole’s David Keeble, adding that Treasurys got a lift as a result.

When the dreariness of the end of “transitory” forces even economists to deploy anything other than glowing metaphors and descriptions of the economy you know it is quite serious: