New orders for real durable goods totaled $247,184 million in May 2021, increasing 35.9% compared with one year ago. Of course, this very strong growth rate in May was affected by the low new orders in May 2020 due to the economic lockdown. In fact, April and May new orders were significantly affected by the economic lockdown, and new orders in June-August were somewhat lower than normal due to the lockdown. Therefore, the rate of growth will continue to be artificially high through August.

May was the fifth straight month of month-over-month growth in durable goods new orders. And, May was the third consecutive month with growth faster than 30%. The result was that the annual rate of change grew 2.2%, which was the first month of growth since December 2019. 

Consumer durable goods spending is growing extremely fast. In 11 of the last 12 months, month-over-month growth was more than 11%. The only exception was December, when the growth rate was still almost 9%, nearly double the historic average. And, for five straight months, the month-over-month rate of growth was faster than 15%. The annual rate of growth accelerated for the 11^th straight month to 20.8%, which was the fastest rate of annual growth ever.

Accelerating Growth: appliances, computers/electronics, construction materials, durable goods, fabricated metal products, HVAC, machinery/equipment, ​​​​motor vehicles/parts, off-road/construction machinery, primary metals

Decelerating Growth: 

Accelerating Contraction: 

Decelerating Contraction: aerospace, oil/gas-field/mining machinery, power generation, ship/boat building, total capital goods