Are the Headlines About Factory Orders Messing with Us Again?

December 05, 2023

by Wolf Richter Wolf Street

The drop in new orders was off an all-time high, while unfilled orders rose to an all-time high. Orders by major category.

The headlines had a kind of shocking collapse-is-nigh quality: Manufacturing orders plunged “by the most since April 2020.” These are new orders that manufacturing sites in the US received. But the drop was off the all-time high a month earlier. And unfilled orders rose to an all-time high. The Census Bureau released the data today. So here we go.