Strong Durable Goods Report for April

The durable goods report for March was a bust, but April’s came back pretty strong. This morning, the Commerce Department said durable goods were up 3.3% in April which beat the 1.5% economists were expecting.

Quickening activity in the housing and auto industries may ripple throughout manufacturing, rendering the economy better able to recover from a slowdown this quarter. At the same time, government cutbacks, higher taxes on consumers and cooling exports are crimping demand, which means any acceleration will be slow to develop.

“This report is consistent with the economy continuing to recover, but just at a moderate pace,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the second-best forecaster of capital goods orders over the past two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “We’re not getting much demand from the rest of the world, but we are getting growth domestically.”

Posted by on May 24th, 2013 at 9:23 am


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