Durable Goods Orders Ex Transp MoM

Durable Goods Orders Ex Transp MoM is the Excluding transportation: New Orders row of Table 1 in the Advance Report, the early monthly release. The Census Bureau publishes it monthly from the M3 survey (Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders) which covers manufacturers through about 5,000 reporting units. New orders are binding commitments net of cancellations, while shipments measure current sales and signal less about future output. Estimates are seasonally adjusted for normal seasonal patterns but not price adjusted, exclude semiconductors, and a move under 0.05% reads as virtually unchanged.

Responses cover the calendar reference month, and the Advance Report appears about 18 working days after it ends at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Dates shift on weekends and holidays, and the Full Report (durables detail plus nondurables) follows 23 working days after month-end at 10:00 a.m. The same release also shows shipments, unfilled orders (order backlog), inventories, and ex defense and capital goods (business equipment) detail. Each release revises the prior month for late receipts and new seasonal factors, with older corrections entering later reports or the annual benchmark.

With transport removed, 6 durable goods groups drive the series.

• Primary metals: steel, aluminum and other metals; captures upstream metals demand.
• Fabricated metal products: processed metal goods.
• Machinery: farm, construction, mining, oil, gas field, industrial and metalworking machinery; core business investment signal.
• Computers and electronic products: computers, related products and communications equipment; tech hardware demand, excluding semiconductors from orders.
• Electrical equipment, appliances, and components: household and industrial electrical goods.
• All other durable goods: furniture, medical equipment and supplies, plus miscellaneous durables.

In March 2024, released April 24, 2024, headline durable goods orders rose 2.6% to $283.4B, while ex transportation orders rose only 0.2%. Transportation orders jumped 7.7% to $95.9B and supplied $6.8B of the $7.3B headline gain, led by nondefense aircraft up 30.6%. In the same release shipments were virtually unchanged at $282.4B while transport shipments fell 0.5%, so orders surged without current sales following. February all manufacturing new orders were also revised down from $576.8B to $575.6B on late receipts.

1. Report: companies and divisions report shipments and unfilled orders for the calendar month. Only binding document orders count, net of cancellations.
2. Link relative estimation: each industry multiplies its prior estimate by the panel change ratio from reporters present in both periods. Firms with abnormal jumps leave the ratio but stay in the level, and nonresponse is imputed from company and industry trends.
3. New orders level: new orders equal estimated shipments plus the change in estimated unfilled orders from the preceding period. The total includes orders received and filled within the period, net of cancellations and modifications. No direct ratio estimation is used because reporting is partial.
4. Seasonal adjustment: detail level shipments, unfilled orders and inventories are seasonally adjusted with X-13ARIMA-SEATS, the seasonal adjustment program, using concurrent factors updated with each observation. Seasonally adjusted new orders then equal adjusted shipments plus the change in adjusted unfilled orders, with no price adjustment.
5. Ex transportation aggregate: the ex transportation aggregate equals seasonally adjusted total new orders minus seasonally adjusted transportation equipment orders. The MoM percent change equals 100 times the change from the preceding period divided by the preceding period level.
6. Illustrative example: with March 2024 rounded figures, $187,470M minus $187,011M equals $459M, and $459M divided by $187,011M times 100 equals 0.245%, reported as +0.2%.