Massive Buying Of Boeing Aircraft Sends US Durable Goods Orders Soaring In March

US Durable Goods Orders printed a massive 9.2% MoM surge in preliminary March data, massively beating the +2.0% MoM expectation) and pulling orders up 10.9% YoY – the highest since Jan 2022. This is the third straight month of strong orders…

Source: Bloomberg

That is a four sigma beat of expectations…

Source: Bloomberg

But… and its a big but!

Ex-Transportation, durable goods orders were unchanged MoM (rising 2.2% YoY)…

Source: Bloomberg

And so – all of the gains in the headline orders print were due to a 139% surge in orders for commercial aircraft and parts…

Source: Bloomberg

Boeing Co. said it received 192 orders in March, the most since the end of 2023 and up from 13 in the previous month. At the same time, China recently ordered its airlines not to take further deliveries of Boeing jets as the trade war escalates.

However, non-defense capital goods shipments including aircraft, which feed directly into the equipment investment portion of the gross domestic product report, dropped 1.9%, the most since October.

What will The Atlanta Fed GDPNOW forecast do with this massively mixed big picture data?