Japan August Machinery Orders come in at a miss.
Earlier this week were data from the Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association (JMTBA):
- preliminary machine tool orders for September -11% y/y (August was -18%)
The drop was driven by domestic (lack of) orders but wasn;t as bad as some estimates I had seen of -20%.
BoA comments:
- September may have benefited from a quarter-end effect, especially after the steep declines we saw in domestic orders over the past few months
- m/m growth was above seasonal trends for both domestic and export orders, and we see no reason to believe that underlying trends are worsening
- we believe we are at or approaching the y/y bottom in orders trends ... (but) we believe it is still too early to call the bottom
