Cutting Tool Orders Drop 5.8 Percent in April

Real cutting tool orders were $183.5 million in April 2015. Compared with April 2014, real orders were down 5.8 percent. This was the first contraction in the one-month rate of change since November 2014. 

For April my forecast was too high by 3.5 percent. Year to date my forecast was too low by 5.9 percent. Much of this error was because I based my forecast for 2015 off of the original data for 2014. It appears that the 2014 data is being revised higher as the 2015 data is released. This could be because more companies are reporting order data, but I'm unsure about this. My 2015 forecast is calling for cutting tool orders to increase 2.7 percent, but this is hard for me to forecast at the moment because of the data revisions. 

While there is not much history to work from with this report, there are a number of potential leading indicators for this data series, including durable goods production, capital goods new orders, and the Gardner Business Index.