§July 2026 durable goods shipments MoM forecast
Framing and exact resolver: this forecast is for Census M3 durable goods manufacturers' shipments, seasonally adjusted, total durable goods, first print for July 2026. The ledger resolver is AMDMVS through ALFRED/FRED; the underlying official publication is the Census Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders. I am keeping the ledger target unchanged even though Census is the official agency source and ALFRED is the resolver mirror.
Checked Census M3 release schedule and 2026 economic-indicator calendar for the July 2026 advance report date.↳ Fetched release-date numbers: Census M3 schedule lists July 2026 survey month Advance Report on 8/26/2026 and Full Report on 9/2/2026; the Census 2026 economic-indicator calendar also lists the Advance Report on Durable Goods for July 2026 at 8:30 AM on August 26, 2026.Opened the latest Census June 2026 Advance Report landing page and Table 1 for shipments and new orders.↳ Fetched current advance-table numbers: total durable goods shipments were 330,685 million dollars in Jun 2026, 328,239 million in May 2026 revised, and 324,768 million in Apr 2026; monthly percent changes were +0.7 for Jun-May, +1.1 for May-Apr, and +0.7 for Apr-Mar.Read Table 1 component rows for transportation, excluding transportation, excluding defense, and orders as same-variant Census advance evidence.↳ Fetched component numbers: durable goods new orders were 334,772 million dollars in Jun 2026 and +0.3% m/m; shipments excluding transportation were 220,903 million and +1.0%; transportation shipments were 109,782 million and +0.2%; shipments excluding defense were 308,180 million and +0.5%.Checked public FRED/ALFRED AMDMVS history mirror for recent seasonally adjusted shipment levels before the latest advance-table revision.↳ Fetched AMDMVS history numbers: May 2026 was 328,030 million dollars, Apr 2026 324,768, Mar 2026 322,562, Feb 2026 320,023, and Jan 2026 315,099, all seasonally adjusted millions of dollars.Reference class and base rate: the closest base rate is monthly percent growth in the same SA durable-goods shipments series. The fetched numeric base-rate sample is short and recent, so I use it mainly for momentum and volatility rather than treating it as a full-cycle mean. That recent 2026 reference class is unusually firm: implied Feb-Jan +1.6%, Mar-Feb +0.8%, Apr-Mar +0.7%, then the Census advance table has May-Apr +1.1% and Jun-May +0.7%. I anchor below that near-term average because shipments are a level flow with mean reversion and because June new orders were only +0.3%.
Prior/update/interval: persistence prior starts from the recent same-series average, (1.6 + 0.8 + 0.7 + 1.1 + 0.7) / 5 = 1.0%, then I subtract 0.4 percentage point for mean reversion from an unusually strong first half of 2026, subtract 0.1 for June new-orders softness, and add 0.0 to 0.1 for still-firm core shipments, giving a rounded point of +0.4%. For dispersion, using fetched recent monthly percent changes [1.6, 0.8, 0.7, 1.1, 0.7], sigma = 0.36 percentage point, so 1.28*sigma = 0.46 percentage point. I widen to a 0.7 point half-width, about 1.5x the recent-sample half-width, because July first-print transportation and aircraft shipments can be lumpy and the five-month sample is quiet. Rounded 80% interval: 0.4 - 0.7 = -0.3 and 0.4 + 0.7 = 1.1.
Variant discipline: every quantitative anchor above is for seasonally adjusted durable-goods manufacturers' shipments or same-table SA durable components from the Census M3 Advance Report/Table 1, not not-seasonally-adjusted shipments, full-report revisions, or durable-goods new orders as the target variable.
Counter-considerations: upside risk is a July catch-up in transportation or aircraft shipments plus continued strong core capital-goods shipments, which would land above the interval if total shipments rose more than +1.1%. Downside risk is a vehicle/aircraft reversal or weaker tariff-related factory throughput, which would land below the interval if total shipments fell more than -0.3%. Outside the interval would most likely require a transportation-led swing rather than normal month-to-month drift in nontransport durable categories.
Review disposition: accepted the resolver clarification that the July month-over-month calculation should use the July first-print vintage and the prior-month level available in that same first-print release. Accepted the volatility caveat by stating the five-month base-rate sample is short and mainly informs momentum and dispersion; rejected adding a longer numeric history because no additional longer same-series values were fetched in the draft evidence.