The U.S.
Commerce Department reported on Thursday that the durable goods orders edged up
0.1 per cent m-o-m in May, following a downwardly revised 0.2 per cent m-o-m gain
(from +0.7 per cent m-o-m) in April. This was the fourth straight monthly advance
in durable goods orders.
Economists
had forecast a 0.1 per cent m-o-m fall.
According to
the report, the May uptick was due to gains in orders in 3 of 9 sectors, including
transportation equipment (+0.6 per cent m-o-m), fabricated metal products (+0.3
per cent m-o-m) and computers and electronic products (+0.1 per cent m-o-m). Meanwhile,
capital goods (-0.5 per cent m-o-m) and machinery (-0.5 per cent m-o-m) recorded the biggest decreases
in orders.
Orders for
durable goods excluding transportation edged down 0.1 per cent m-o-m in May,
following an unrevised 0.4 per cent m-o-m increase in the previous month, worse than economists’ prediction
of a 0.2 per cent m-o-m gain.
Elsewhere,
orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched
proxy for business spending plans, dropped 0.6 per cent m-o-m last month after
an unrevised 0.3 per cent m-o-m advance
in April. This marked
the steepest monthly decrease since December 2023 (-0.6 per cent m-o-m). Economists
had forecast a 0.1 per cent m-o-m rise
in core capital goods orders for May.
On a y-o-y
basis, durable goods orders rose 0.1 per cent, while orders, excluding
transportation, climbed 1.9 per cent.