Durable Goods Orders
August's Durable Goods Orders report was posted at 8:30 AM ET this morning, revealing a 0.4% rise in new orders at U.S. factories for big-ticket products such airplanes, appliances and electronics. This was well below expectations of a 1.2% increase, indicating the manufacturing sector was not as strong as thought last month. Even a secondary reading that excludes orders for more costly and volatile airplanes and related items fell short of forecasts. This data is known to have large swings, so the size of the variance isn’t as much of an issue as it would be in other reports. Still, we can consider the report good news for bonds and mortgage rates.