U.S. durable goods orders rise below expectations in June

U.S. durable goods orders recovered in the month of June. On a sequential basis, the durable goods orders rose 1 percent, softer than consensus expectations of a rise of 3 percent. A rise in transportation orders mainly drove the rebound in the headline figure.

Nondefense aircraft orders, however, rose below expectations that explains much of the miss compared to the forecast. Stripping transportation, orders rose 0.4 percent sequentially, slightly below expectation. At the core level, capital goods orders rose 0.6 percent sequentially, stronger than anticipated, while core capital goods shipments also rose strongly by 1 percent.

The softer than expected core goods imports today suggest lower equipment investment, noted Barclays. Moreover, softness in shipments of categories such as computers and aircrafts also were a drag on the equipment investment tracking. The inventories side of the report was slightly below expectations.

“Taken together, the boost from this morning’s trade data was offset by the durable goods orders report and left our Q2 GDP tracker unchanged, at 5.2 percent”, added Barclays.

At 18:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was highly bullish at 116.393. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex