Durable Goods Orders Fell 2.5% In December 2010

Friday morning, Beijing time, the US Department of Commerce reported Thursday durable goods in December.

Durable goods orders in the United States have dropped in 4 months in the past 5 months.

Orders for pport equipment fell by 12.8%, ranking first.

Excluding pportation, the order for durable goods increased by 0.5% last month.

Core capital equipment orders increased by 1.4% in December and 3.1% in November.

Durable goods orders in November were not revised by 0.3%.

The durable goods orders and pport reports are much lower than expected.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected an increase of 1% in orders last month.

Theresa Chen, Barclays Capital economist, said that spending on equipment and software is still growing, but the growth rate is lower than in the first half of 2010.

Monthly orders for durable goods are quite volatile, pportation industry.

For example, orders for non defense aircraft dropped by 99.5% in December and 59.6% in November.

Many economists had predicted that aircraft orders would rise and aircraft orders were mainly from Boeing.

Motor vehicle orders increased by 1.7% in December and 2.3% in November.

The new order trend is considered to be an important leading economic indicator.

Durable goods orders refer to high priced goods that can last for three years or even longer.

"Overall, the recovery of durable goods orders is continuing," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

Because of weak economic data, U.S. stocks opened lower on Thursday.

After the durable goods orders report was released, the bond market declined narrowing and the US dollar exchange rate declined.

The Ministry of labour reported that the number of initial jobless claims increased by 51 thousand to 454 thousand last week, which exceeded expectations.

Durable goods

Durable goods pport increased by 1.4% in December and 0.5% in November.

In December, the pportation of core capital equipment increased by 1.7%, up by 1.4% in November.

The core capital equipment pportation volume will be directly included in GDP.

In December, durable goods inventories increased by 0.7%, increasing for 12 consecutive months.

Electronic products excluding semiconductors fell by 2.5% in December and 0.1% in November.

Transport volume fell by 2.5%.

Machinery orders increased by 10.6% in December, 0.3% in November and 6.7% in December.

Orders for power equipment decreased by 0.1% in December, 8.6% in November and 1.8% in December.

The orders for semi finished metal products decreased by 4.7% in December, an increase of 13.8% in November and an increase of 2.5% in December.

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In December, orders for fabricated metal products decreased by 1%, 2.9% in November, and 0.7% in shipments of metal products in December.

Defense capital goods orders decreased by 3.6% in December, 14.7% in November, and 1.5% in defense capital goods shipments in December.

Excluding all defense products, orders for durable goods decreased by 2.5% last month.