September was a great month, but all of October's gains were revised away, and then some.

October's 6.2% Gain, Now a Loss

The reported 6.2% gain turns out to be a revised 1.7% decline. Fancy that.

Do I have any faith in the numbers this month? Not much. Why should anyone?

Confidence Interval

Please note the confidence interval of +- 10.4%.

The commerce department was within their confidence limit. The October revision was 7.9 percentage points.

Why the Surge?

For starters, we are not positive there was a surge, but let's assume it happened. Here are three likely reasons.