New orders for US-manufactured durable goods rose 1.8% in September, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, topping forecasts of a 1.5% gain.
The increase followed an upwardly revised 0.1% rise in August and marked a third straight monthly advance, after a 0.9% gain in July. In dollar terms, the move added roughly $6.3B to bring total orders to about $345.4B for the month. Durable goods are products built to last at least three years, from aircraft and cars to machinery and computers.
Durable goods orders accelerated to a 1.8% gain in September
Monthly % change in new orders for US-made durable goods, 2026
Bar chart. % change. July: Monthly change (%) 0.90%. August: Monthly change (%) 0.10%. September: Monthly change (%) 1.80%.
Aircraft carried the headline number
Transportation equipment orders climbed 4.6% after a 0.3% decline in August, powered by a 28.4% surge in civilian aircraft bookings. Autos barely moved, edging up 0.3% after falling 0.8% the prior month.
Outside transportation, the gains were broad but milder. Machinery orders rose 1.2%, computers and electronic products gained 0.8%, primary metals added 0.5%, and fabricated metal products rose 0.4%. Stripping out transportation, orders rose 0.5%, following a 0.3% August gain.
Orders excluding defense jumped 2.2%, and defense capital orders have now fallen three months in a row, though they remain well above pre-war levels.
Business investment is still running on AI buildouts
Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, the standard proxy for business investment plans, rose 0.5% in September after a 1.6% jump in August. Economists polled by Reuters had penciled in 0.7%.
Shipments in that category, which feed straight into the equipment line of gross domestic product, rose sharply after a weak August. Continuum Economics put the gain at 1.7% following a 1.3% decline, while Reuters reported a 1.2% rise.
Year to date, orders excluding transportation are up about 9.7%, and core capital goods orders are up about 10.9%. Business spending on equipment has posted two straight quarters of double-digit growth, driven largely by aggressive AI investment that's also propping up manufacturing output.
The advance estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product lands Thursday, and economists expect growth of more than a 3% annualized rate. Strong September shipments support that math.
Under the surface, momentum has cooled. The ex-transportation trend stayed positive through the third quarter but slowed after a very strong second quarter, and a 0.3% rise in inventories was a three-month low.
Investors are paying more attention to the bill for all this. Tech firms have borrowed heavily over the past year to fund AI projects whose payoff is still years out, and each monthly capital goods print is a running tally of how much equipment that borrowing buys.
