October 2016 Manufacturing 'New Orders' Improved

US Census says manufacturing new orders improved. Our analysis agrees. The rolling averages improved and are now in expansion year-over-year.

Analyst Opinion of Census Manufacturing Sales

According to the seasonally adjusted data, most areas of manufacturing showed strength. Our analysis agrees – but the data in this series is noisy so I would rely on the unadjusted 3 month rolling averages which say there was a moderate improvement this month.

Unadjusted Manufacturing 3 Month Rolling Average New Orders (blue line) and Inflation Adjusted (red line)

US Census Headline:

The seasonally adjusted manufacturing new orders is up 2.7 % month-over-month, and down 2.0 % year-to-date (last month was down 2.6 % year-to-date)..

Market expected (from Bloomberg / Econoday) month-over-month growth of 2.5 % to 3.4 % (consensus +2.7 %) versus the reported +2.7 %.

Manufacturing unfilled orders up 0.7 % month-over-month, and down 1.1 % year-over-year.

Econintersect Analysis:

Unadjusted manufacturing new orders growth accelerated 0.6 % month-over-month, and up 0.5 % year-over-year.

Unadjusted manufacturing new orders (but inflation adjusted) up 0.5 % year-over-year.

Three month rolling new order rolling averages accelerated 2.3 % month-over-month, and is up 0.5 % year-over-year.

Unadjusted manufacturing unfilled orders growth accelerated 0.6 % month-over-month, and down 1.1 % year-over-year

As a comparison to the inflation adjusted new orders data, the manufacturing subindex of the Federal Reserves Industrial Production growth accelerated 0.2 % month-over-month, and unchanged 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)