Durable goods new orders is flat lined for yet another month, at a 0.3% increase since last month. The big news is the November new orders for durable goods was revised, now at a -0.4% decline, but when reported it was a 0.2% increase. So, this makes this months numbers look better but really this isn't a strong report.

I mean look at this graph since the start of the official recession:

Even if one excludes the volatile aircraft, manufacturing new orders just hasn't come close to recovering to pre-recession levels.

Here's the stat breakdown:

• New Orders +0.3%
• Shipments +2.9%
• Inventories -0.2%
• Non-Defense New Orders +0.2%
• Defense New Orders +2.8%

New orders for computer equipment dropped 5.3%. I wonder if this has any implications for Windows 7? Non-defense aircraft new orders dropped 38.2% and this is always a volatile figure. Obviously one doesn't order new planes and hopefully new parts every day. But it did assuredly pull down the overall numbers. Still while machinery was up 6% and primary metals was up 8.1%, a host of durable goods which imply investment, manufacturing were down.