Courtesy of Karl Denninger, The Market Ticker
New orders for manufactured durable goods in January increased $5.3 billion or 2.7 percent to $200.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase followed three consecutive monthly decreases including a 0.4 percent December decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 3.6 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 1.9 percent.
Transportation equipment, also up following three consecutive monthly decreases, had the largest increase, $10.9 billion or 27.6 percent to $50.5 billion. This was led by to nondefense aircraft and parts, which increased $7.3 billion.
Yeah….. that doesn’t sound so good. But the internals of the table are horrible. (Click on table to enlarge.)
There is nothing in here that suggests increased economic activity. Those numbers are just plain bad, especially in the areas I watch carefully, computers and communications gear.
If you remember last month I said that the non-defense aircraft number (which collapsed last month) would show a ridiculous increase, and it did – up 4,900% 
Nonetheless what we’re seeing in the durables report is a deteriorating picture when it comes to forward employment indications, and that’s not a good thing at all. Some of this is likely seasonal (although those numbers claim to be seasonally adjusted) due to year-end considerations but the fact remains that even with the adjustments this report just plain sucks.
