New orders for manufactured goods in February rose 0.3% to $343 billion while shipments decreased 0.5% to $347 billion, according to the Department of Commerce. This spells good news for truckers as the transportation industry delivers goods coming in and out of factories.
Shipments of manufactured durable goods rose 0.9% to $188 billion while shipments of nondurable goods were down 2% to $159 billion. Shipments of transportation equipment saw the most significant increase of the durable goods category, up 6.6% to $54.9 billion.
Of the transportation category heavy-duty truck shipments dipped 3.6% to $1.1 billion. However, this is a 12.2% increase over the year-earlier period. Interestingly, the figure is relatively consistent with Volvo Truck’s recent report of delivering 14% more trucks over the same year-earlier period.
