We hear a lot about our country’s insatiable appetite for foreign-made goods.  However, it is easy to forget that our trading partners also have an increasing appetite for American-made durable goods (where "durable goods" includes such things as computers, furniture, aircraft, machinery, ....).  In fact, over the past decade, a growing share of our manufactured goods has been heading overseas.  Although the worldwide recession temporarily reversed this trend in 2009, exports rebounded strongly last year and accounted for roughly half of the overall growth in durable goods shipments.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in January 2011 increased 2.7 percent, to $200.5 billion. Excluding transportation, new orders fell 3.6 percent. Capital goods shipments decreased 3.5 percent and overall shipments increased 0.3 percent. Inventories increased 0.7 percent in January.

Advance Report on Durable Goods

The bottom line is that January’s data on durable goods orders and shipments wasn’t as strong as expected, but we should keep in mind two facts.  First off, last year these series did pretty well.  Second, as I'll discuss below, several fundamental factors should boost the demand for durable goods through 2011, so let’s make sure not to place too much emphasis on a single month’s data point.    

New orders for manufactured durable goods in December fell 2.5%, to $191.0 billion. Excluding transportation, new orders rose 0.5%. Shipments increased 1.4%, to $200.4 billion. Unfilled orders decreased 0.4%, to $822.8 billion. Inventories of manufactured durable goods in December increased 0.7%, to $322.0 billion.

Press release

The Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) releases 12 monthly and quarterly Principal Federal Economic Indicators collected by its constituent bureaus: the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Businesses rely heavily upon these indicators to make decisions every day. In their public comments, the Secretary and ESA’s Under Secretary and Chief Economist put the indicators into a national and global economic context.