Japanese Machine Orders tumbled in April by the most in five months after domestic production came to a near halt on the back of plummeting global sales. Falling -5.4% vs an expected -0.6% drop, the metric comes during a month in which Vehicle Sales plummeted 28.6% in the year through.
Since April, the rate of vehicle sales has picked up and actually only fell by 19.4% in the 12 months through May. While this might not necessarily be indicative of a rebound in the Japanese economy, this may show that April’s release of the Machine Orders figure may not provide any new insight into the future direction of the island-economy. The lagged nature of this release may then indeed be unreliable.