WASHINGTON — New orders for durable goods posted their biggest decline of 2010 in August, falling 1.3% due to a dip in demand for transportation equipment, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
Transportation orders fell 10.3%, pulled lower by a large drop in nondefense aircraft orders. Auto orders fell 4.4%. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders rose 2.0%, the strongest monthly gain in five months.
Economists expected durable goods to fall 1.0% in August and expected orders excluding transportation to increase 1.0%, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Nondefense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, jumped 4.1% to post the largest increase since May. Total unfilled orders slipped 0.1% in August.
“Although headline durable goods orders were down 1.3% in August, that drop mostly reflected a plunge in volatile aircraft orders, which had surged higher in July,” Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, said in a research note. “Under the surface, the news was good, pointing to a continuing revival in capital equipment demand.”
