Continued supply chain woes hit U.S. factory orders in February, as the economic indicator fell for the first time in nine months. Down 0.5 percent, orders were dragged down by transportation equipment and manufacturing. The decline could be a sign of shifting consumer spending to services, or a sign of slowing economic growth.
Accounting for 12 percent of the U.S. economy, factory orders are released monthly in a report by the Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce and are economic indicators of the dollar value for goods from factories.
Factory orders are categorized into two major groupings: durable and non-durable goods and are broken out into four sections— new orders, which indicate whether orders are growing or slowing, unfilled orders, which indicate a backlog in production, shipments, which indicate current sales and inventories, which indicate the strength of current and future production.
New orders decreased $2.7 billion or 0.5 percent and were in line with expectations. Shipments of manufactured goods rose 0.6 percent, inventories at factories climbed 0.6 percent. Unfilled orders gained 0.4 percent.
