Durable Goods: New Orders during the fourth quarter of 2020 were showing strong year-over-year gains.  In the latest available release, monthly new orders very nearly matched pre-pandemic levels ($244.4B  vs. $246.2B in 2/2020). Unfortunately, the latest reading for Durable Goods: New Orders is from November; however, there are high-frequency measures that can serve as a proxy for monitoring durable goods orders and activity in near real-time.  One of these is railcar activity measured weekly.

For the week period ending 1/16/2021, total carload units was up 5.4% from the same week 1-year ago. Charted here is the 4-week moving average of the same metric, along with a 4-week moving average of carload units. The 4-week average change indicates a slightly lower 3.6% increase in carload units activity using Gardner’s own calculation.

US carload activity has increased during the early weeks of 2021 and follows improving activity in durable goods new orders data.