WASHINGTON — New orders for manufactured goods remained almost unchanged in November, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
New orders rose $211 million, or less than 0.1%, to $477.6 billion. The flat month followed an unrevised uptick of 0.8% the previous month.
The numbers came in short of the expectations of economists polled by Thomson Reuters, who predicted that orders would rise 0.4% from the previous month.
Excluding transportation, new orders rose 0.2%. Excluding defense, orders climbed 0.1%.
Shipments of durable goods rose $3.5 billion or 1.6% to $227 billion in November, following a slight increase in October.
Unfilled orders climbed $1.1 billion or 0.1% to $984.5 billion. That increase followed a 0.3% rise in October and was the fifth rise in the past six months.
Inventories, which have risen in 34 of the last 35 months, increased $800 million or 0.2% to $374.8 billion. The advance came after a 0.3% rise the previous month, bringing the total to its highest since the data was first published on an NAICS basis in 1992.