Following yesterday’s ‘good’ news from PMIs, this morning we get ‘hard’ data confirming that ‘good’ news with preliminary April Durable Goods orders surging 0.7% MoM (vs -0.8% MoM expected). However, as is the way with Bidenomics, March’s +2.6% MoM surge in orders was revised down to a +0.8% MoM rise. This is the third month in a row of MoM gains for durable goods new orders and lifts the nominal YoY move to +1.3%…

Source: Bloomberg

Over the last 14 months, durable goods orders have been revised lower 9 times (and the downward revisions are considerably larger than the upward revisions)…

Source: Bloomberg

On a NSA basis, durable goods orders tumbled in April and on the freshly revised SA basis, it limped higher from 12 month lows…

Source: Bloomberg

The Commerce Department’s report showed bookings for commercial aircraft, which are volatile from month to month, fell 8% after posting solid gains in the prior two months.

Boeing Co. reported only seven orders in April, down from 113 in March. The company’s executives have cautioned that output will be stop-and-start in the first half of 2024 as the company works to strengthen inspections for defects, perform more work in sequence and faces supplier shortages.

Once again it was war spending that saved the data – with defense +15.2% MoM vs non-defense -1.5% MoM…

Source: Bloomberg

It was not just the headline data that was revised lower (prompting a ‘first glance’ beat for April) with Durable Ex Transports’ 0.2% MoM rise revised to unchanged in March and Orders non-defense ex-aircraft also revised from +0.1% MoM to -0.1% MoM.

Furthermore, Capital Goods shipments non-defense, ex-aircraft was revised from unchanged to -0.3% MoM – a big drop for a key signal of business spending and GDP.

How many times can a data series be downwardly revised before conspiracies about manipulated data flip from theory to actual ‘standard operating procedure’?