The good news in the factory orders report was that March non-defense ex-aircraft capital goods orders were revised to -0.1% from -0.8%, suggesting business investment isn’t heading into Q2 on quite the soft footing that was expected when the original report was released on April 25.
Still the core orders measures fell below the 1.0% rise expected so it’s not good news, it ‘less bad than expected’.
Markets are going to freak out if non-farm payrolls are weak, heck, if tomorrow’s jobless claims data stays around 385K the market might not even wait until Friday.