Free Republic

The previous advance manufacturing report had showed that durable goods orders in February had declined. However, the drop in durable goods orders has been revised to 3% from the initial estimate of 2.8%. Furthermore, most of the downward revision was made in non-defence capital goods. According to the advance report, the core capital goods orders fell just 1.8%; however, yesterday’s report revised the decline to 2.5%. Core capital goods orders dropped at a three-month annualized rate of 10.2%, whereas the shipments are declining at a 7.7% clip. ... The inventory-to-ship ratio was 1.37 for the third consecutive month. This is...