A month ago, when looking at the latest Factory Orders numbers we noticed something very disturbing: the annual rate of increase, or rather decrease, in factory orders dropped to -2.3%. The last two time this happened was in 2008, just after the failure of Lehman, and in 2001, just as the US was again entering a recession. In fact, if there is one reliable indicator of key recessionary turning points for the US economy, it is the annual change in Factory Orders.