Durable Goods: Good or Bad, Depending on Who Spins It!

I've noticed that the media spins the durable goods numbers this morning in different ways. Interesting! From what I've read, it was about as expected, but hovering near record lows! The spin-meisters are suggesting that this is good news because it was "as expected", but the fact that durable goods remains at terrible levels suggests that things are still very bad! I've learned to be a skeptic of all news reporting!

Bloomberg usually has a relatively even-handed approach to the numbers:

Durable-goods orders hovered near a 13-year low and the number of Americans collecting unemployment insurance reached a 17th straight record, offering no sign of an imminent rebound from the worst U.S. recession in half a century.

Orders rose 1.9 percent in April after a 2.1 percent drop in March that was more than twice as large as previously estimated, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said 6.79 million people are collecting jobless benefits, and another report showed new-home sales were lower than forecast in April.