Ian Shepherdson Downward Quotations

Katrina and Rita effects still linger, though they are fading, ... Claims will likely rise next week as the full effects of Wilma hit, but the downward trend is very clear.

One steep drop in housing starts does not make a downward trend, especially in a month which was very wet in the West and very cold in the Northeast. Still, the data are consistent with other signs of a softening housing market, most notably the drop in homebuilders' confidence. What really matters, though, is whether sales will fall fast enough to turn a softening into a collapse.

The headline is all about Boeing, which reported 200 new aircraft orders in May, up from 14 in April. Unusually, it seems that nearly all these orders have hit the official data immediately. Apart from this, however, these are soft data. Ex-transportation orders fell 0.2% and there was a downward revision to April, now put at -0.7%.