- Prior -11.1%
The February reading marks a minor bounce after the sharp drop in January, which at the time owed to a steep drop in the orders for the manufacture of metal products (-39.4%). That of course follows up from the sharp jump in December (+29.7%) before that. So, it is essentially some normalisation in the data after months of volatile orders having an effect.
If you exclude large orders from the latest data, German factory orders were actually 3.5% in February compared to January. In the less volatile three-month comparison though, new orders in the three months to February were still down 0.8% than in the preceeding three months.
Looking at the details, new orders in the automotive industry helped to underpin the bounce in February with 3.8% growth alongside a notable jump in the textile industry (+45.2%). That is however offset by a decline in other vehicle manufacturing (aircraft, ships, trains, military vehicles), which saw a 25.9% drop.
Foreign orders were the ones contributing the most, seen up 4.7% on the month. Meanwhile, domestic orders were seen down 4.4% on the month.
