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New orders for manufactured goods rose in January after two straight months of declines (MarketWatch).

What’s going on: Overall durable goods orders increased 3.1% last month, and a key metric of manufacturing strength, “[s]o-called core durable goods orders, climbed 0.8% last month” after a 0.2% rise in December, the Commerce Department said today.

• It’s the third consecutive monthly gain for core capital goods, which exclude often-volatile sectors such as transportation and defense.
• Wall Street Journal–polled economists had forecast a 2.0% increase for total orders.

Why it happened: The increases were due to transportation equipment orders, which jumped 9.8% (Seeking Alpha). Excluding those, new orders were essentially unchanged from December to January.

Nondefense orders: Nondefense durable goods orders grew 3.5% in January, after having declined a revised 1.8% the previous month.