Orders for durable goods rise 2.5% in March

Marketwatch ^ | 4.27.11 | Jeffry Bartash

[Free Vulcan]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Orders for long-lasting U.S. goods bounced back in March, spurred by higher demand for transportation equipment, computers and defense-related products.

The Commerce Department on Wednesday said orders for U.S.-made products expected to last at least three years climbed 2.5% in March. The data for February was also revised to show a 0.7% increase instead of an originally reported decline. Orders have risen three straight months.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected orders to rise by 3.0%.

Orders for transportation equipment such jets and airplanes jumped 5.9% last month to $54.7 billion after a small increase in February. Factoring out the volatile transportation sector, orders rose a smaller 1.3%.

[Free Vulcan]

With the lower dollar and some business investment to replace outdated capital goods this doesn't surprise me. I doubt though that employment rolls have increased much to meet the demand.

There has been a string of decent news lately, but I'm still looking for a double-dip, with the second dip being pretty harsh.

[CT Hillbilly]

I think the worse is yet to come...

[nhwingut]

Gas has gone up about 70 cents since March. Let’s see April’s orders.

[redk]

Is this like two summers ago when orders for Catepillars went up and that was supposed to mean everything was sunny and happy again?

[familyop]

WTO helping China Loot Caterpillar
americanthinker.com ^ | 10/04/2010 | Howard Richman & Raymond Richman

"Why can’t Caterpillar make a profit exporting mini-excavators to China? The answer is simple: China has a 30% tariff on all excavators. In fact it has a similar high tariff on just about every vehicle, be it a Ford car, a GMC truck, a Harley Davidson motorcycle, or a giant mining machine made by Bucyrus International."

[familyop]

"spurred by higher demand for transportation equipment, computers and defense-related products" debt.