The US durable goods orders report for February was released a while ago. Both headline goods orders, as well as core orders have been quite volatile in the second half of 2019 and continued like that in January this year too. That month, core durable goods orders increased by 0.9%, after having been negative in December, but today’s report showed that core orders turned negative again, declining by 0.6%, even more than expectations of 0.4%, while headline orders posted a nice jump. Below is the goods orders report:

• Prelim durable goods orders data +1.2% vs -1.0% expected
• Prior was -0.2% (revised to +0.1%)
• Ex transport -0.6% vs -0.4% exp
• Prior ex transport +0.8% (revised to +0.6%)
• Capital goods orders non-defense ex air -0.8% vs -0.4% exp
• Prior capital goods orders non-defense ex air +1.1% (revised to +1.0%)
• Capital goods shipments non-defense ex air -0.7% vs -0.2% exp
• Prior capital goods shipments non-defense ex air +1.0% (revised to +1.1%)

Headline orders turned positive this time after declining by 0.2% in January, which was revised higher to 0.1% today. But, core orders which jumped in January turned negative in February, declining by 0.6%, while capital goods orders, non-defense excluding aircraft, declined even more, by 0.8%.

This isn’t good, but as I said in the coverage of this event in our forex calendar, this report still shows life before coronavirus. Things will change dramatically in this month’s report when it gets released in about a month.