WASHINGTON — New orders for manufactured durable goods rose $8 billion or 3.6% to $231 billion in May, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
The increase followed a revised 3.6% advance the previous month, originally reported as a 3.3% increase. It was the third increase of the past four months.
The May uptick reflected an increase in transportation equipment orders, which climbed $6.9 billion or 10.2% to $74.3 billion. Excluding transportation, new orders rose 0.7%. Excluding defense, they climbed 3.5%. Excluding aircraft, new orders rose 1.1%.
The May increase exceeded the expectations of economists polled by Thomson Reuters, who had projected that durable goods orders would rise 3%. They had expected that new orders excluding transportation would be unchanged.
Durable goods shipments increased $2.8 billion or 1.2% to $229.7 billion in May. That followed a revised 0.6% dip the previous month and was the largest monthly shipment increase since a 1.2% spike reported in November 2012.
Unfilled orders for durable goods climbed $8.1 billion or 0.8% to $1.005 trillion. That followed a revised 0.3% increase the previous month.
Inventories, which have risen in four of the past five months, rose $500 million or 0.1% to $378 billion in May. The gain followed a 0.3% increase in April and brought the inventory level to its highest since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992.
