US durable goods orders rose 1.8% in September and beat expectations, but aircraft orders supplied much of the gain. Core capital goods orders rose 0.5%, while shipments of those goods accelerated.
US durable goods orders rose 1.8% m/m in September, up from August's upwardly revised 0.1% increase. Markets had expected 1.6%.
Aircraft account for most of the increase
Total new orders climbed $6.3B to $345.4B, the sixth increase in seven months. However, transportation equipment orders surged 4.6%, accounting for $5.2B of that rise, and nondefense aircraft orders jumped 28.4%.
Excluding transportation, orders rose 0.5%, up from 0.3% in August but slightly below expectations of 0.6%.
Core capital goods orders slow, shipments pick up
Nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending, rose 0.5% after an unrevised 1.6% jump in August, the Census Bureau said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast an advance of 0.7%.
Shipments of the same category accelerated from 0.6% to 1.2%, according to ActionForex. Reuters notes that core shipments feed into the business equipment spending component of the GDP report.
Third-quarter GDP data comes Thursday
Economists expect the government's advance estimate of GDP on Thursday to show growth at more than a 3.0% annualized rate in the third quarter. Investors, however, are increasingly focusing on the rising costs of long-term projects in which the payoff is uncertain.
Elsewhere in the report, durable goods shipments rebounded from -0.2% to +0.9%, and unfilled orders rose 0.8% to $1,623.6B.
Sources: ActionForex, Investing.com (Reuters)
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