New orders for manufactured goods clocked in at $477.6 billion for November 2012, a negligible bump above October's $477.4 billion, according to a Department of Commerce report [link opens in PDF] released today. Compared to November 2011, new orders are up 3.2%.
Source: Department of Commerce.
After September's 4.5% gain and October's 0.8% bump, these newest numbers reverse immediate hopes of a positive trend for new factory orders. The report also failed to meet expectations of Wall Street analysts, who had expected a 0.3% increase for November.
Inventories remained relatively unchanged from October's $615.2 billion, but are up 2.5% from November 2011. Inventories of durable goods continued their climb, increasing 0.2% to $374.8 billion. Up 34 of the last 35 months, these newest numbers represent the highest level reached since data was first recorded in 1992.
In more positive news, shipments increased 0.4% and are up four of the last five months. The inventories-to-shipments ratio, a statistic used to measure the sustainable flow of goods, dropped slightly to 1.27.
RSS Headlines
Fool UK
Comments from our Foolish Readers
Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the
Report this Comment icon found on every comment.
Be the first one to comment on this article.