German Orders Fall

German orders came up flat in February after falling by 5.5% in January. It's been a turbulent period for orders. The January drop came after an increase of 5.6% in December, so orders have been chopping around the last few months and are not really going anywhere. Foreign orders rose 0.8% in February after falling 0.5% in January and being flat in December. Domestic orders fell 1.2% in February after falling by 12.1% in January but that had followed a 13.9% increase in December. Once again, there is a lot of volatility and little trend.

The trend path for orders looking at 12-month, 6-month, and 3-month growth shows not much stirring. Total order orders fall 0.2% over 12 months; they rise at a 2.7% annual rate over six months and then fall at a 0.9% annual rate over three months.

Foreign orders rose 0.1% over 12 months; they were up 1.9% at an annual rate over six months and they rose by 1.4% at an annual rate over three months. Foreign orders are showing some sustainable growth over three months and six months although they have very little to show for it over 12 months. Domestic orders fall by 0.9% over 12 months; they gain at a 3.5% annual rate over six months and then fall at a 4.3% annually over three months. Domestic orders display the same kind of volatility that we see in the headline overall and not the tendency toward creeping growth that we see looking at foreign orders. Moreover, the domestic series updates with a 3-month growth rate that's negative which is not encouraging. Real sales data show a small increase in February of 0.2% for manufacturing after falling 1.0% in January and rising 0.8% in December. The sequential growth rates hint at some improvement but not much with a 3% decline over 12 months, a 0.4% decline at an annual rate over six months and then a swing to positive growth at 0.4% at an annual rate over three months; this is creeping and good news, but it's very moderate growth.

Industrial confidence measures for Germany, France, Italy, and Spain the four largest economies in the European Monetary Union, show a modest improvement from January to February in Germany and in France, unchanged conditions in Italy, compared to some slight slippage in Spain. Viewed sequentially, the industrial confidence data don't show much movement from 12-months to 6-months to 3-months for these countries; Germany and France get slightly weaker; Italy and Spain have even smaller moves although they also get slightly weaker. The rankings on the levels of these industrial confidence measures in February give us rankings that are below the 50% mark, putting them below their median for all four countries. The reading for Germany is the lowest with 5.9 percentile standings; the others have rankings between the 20th and 40th percentile on that timeline.

The data on orders in real sales on a ranking basis we find overall orders and domestic orders are moderate-to-weak with an overall order of ranking in the 53rd percentile compared to a domestic ranking at the 25th percentile and foreign orders have a firm 71.5 percentile standing. These calculations are based on the levels of orders. Then expressed in terms of growth rates, these three orders metrics have rankings between their 36th and 40th percentiles putting them below their median growth rate for the period. Real sector sales, for manufacturing sales for example with a 48-percentile standing based upon the level of sales, logs a 19-percentile standing based upon the ranking of its year-over-year growth rate.

However, we have to look at these data and offer a caveat because there's a step up in military spending coming from Germany and we expect that to affect the German industrial sector, its orders, its industrial output and the economy at large. And then, of course, there's the new spread of tariffs that have been issued by the United States just this week that is going to turn a lot of apple carts upside down and cause most data series released before the announcement of the tariff data to be branded as old and executed under old rules. We are going to want to reassess what's being done and beyond these new administration policies and that simply means that everything we're looking at is going to be turned upside down. Tariff data push countries toward a profile of weaker growth while the military spending that we see coming to Europe should push things to stronger growth. At this time, it's hard to tell which of these two factors is going to dominate in the short run.