- Prior month +1.3%
- Manufacturing Sales +0.1% versus -0.1% estimate
Details:
- Manufacturing sales: +0.1% m/m to $78.8 billion, the fifth consecutive monthly increase.
- Year over year: Sales were +14.5%.
- Excluding petroleum & coal: Sales increased a much stronger 2.6% m/m.
- Constant-dollar sales: +1.2%, suggesting underlying volumes were firmer than the headline nominal increase.
Subsector highlights
- Chemicals: +6.0% to $6.3 billion, a fourth straight gain and highest since October 2022.
- Transportation equipment: +2.8% to $12.4 billion, the fifth consecutive monthly increase.
- Motor vehicle parts: +6.2%
- Aerospace products & parts: +6.0%
- Petroleum & coal:-14.1% to $10.1 billion, largely reflecting lower petroleum and energy prices.
Second-quarter strength is a positive
- Q2 manufacturing sales surged 9.3% to a record $235.1 billion, the fourth straight quarterly increase.
- Petroleum & coal: +33.7% q/q
- Transportation equipment: +14.7% q/q
- Excluding petroleum & coal: +6.1% q/q
- Constant-dollar Q2 sales: +4.6%
Inventories do add to the growth.
Manufacturing inventories rose 0.6% to $126.8 billion in June and were up 2.0% in Q2.
- Goods in process: +2.0%
- Raw materials: +0.2%
- Finished products: -0.3%
- Transportation equipment inventories: +3.1%
- Machinery: +2.0%
- Petroleum and coal: -3.6%
- Inventory-to-sales ratio edged higher to 1.61 from 1.60 in May.
- Unfilled orders increased 1.2% to a record $131.8 billion, driven largely by a 2.4% increase in aerospace products and parts. Unfilled orders were +8.4% in Q2.
- Capacity utilization edged up to 82.3% from 82.2%.
- Non-metallic mineral products: +4.3 percentage points
- Primary metals: +1.9 points
- Machinery: +0.6 point
- Transportation equipment: -2.9 points
Overall, the headline +0.1% increase looks modest, but it was better than expectatations and the the details are stronger. Excluding the sharp petroleum decline, sales rose 2.6%, volumes increased 1.2%, Q2 sales hit a record, and unfilled orders also reached a record high. The 2nd quarter data was strong as well.
This article was written by Greg Michalowski at investinglive.com.
