United States Durable Goods Orders

New orders for US-manufactured durable goods rose 0.5% month-over-month in September 2025, following an upwardly revised 3.0% increase in August and exceeding market expectations of 0.3%. Demand for transportation equipment grew 0.4%, compared with 8.0% in the previous month, driven by vehicles (+0.4% vs. +0.6%) and defense aircraft (+30.9% vs. +48.3%). Other sectors also posted gains, including electrical equipment, appliances, and components (+1.5% vs. +0.6%), primary metals (+1.4% vs. +0.5%), computers and electronic products (+0.5% vs. -1.1%), fabricated metal products (+0.5%, unchanged), and machinery (+0.1% vs. +2.2%). Excluding transportation, new orders rose 0.6% in September after a 0.5% gain in August, while excluding defense, they increased just 0.1% following a 1.9% rise the prior month. Meanwhile, orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, rose by 0.9%, the same as in August.