Machinery Orders (private sector excl. ships and electric power, seasonally adjusted)

The Machinery Orders statistics are published monthly by Japan’s Cabinet Office and measure the value of orders for capital equipment received by machinery makers. The Cabinet Office describes the survey as basic data for grasping capital investment trends at an early stage. Because equipment is ordered before it is installed and counted as investment, the orders offer a clue to the outlook for corporate capital spending. This page uses the seasonally adjusted “private sector excluding ships and electric power” series, which removes volatile orders from shipbuilding and power companies. As the monthly figures swing widely, moving averages are shown to make the trend easier to follow. Note that the series adopted as a leading series in the Indexes of Business Conditions is “real machinery orders (manufacturing)”, which differs from this series.