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New orders for manufactured goods increased 1.4% in August, following a 1.3% decline in July. Meanwhile, new orders for manufactured goods grew 3.3% over the year. When excluding transportation, new orders inched up 0.1% over the month and 0.6 year-over-year in August. Orders for durable goods rose 2.9%, following a 2.8% drop in July. Year to date, durable goods orders are up 7.0%. Nondurable goods orders edged down 0.1% in August after increasing 0.3% in July. Nondurable goods orders are down 0.2% over the year.

New orders for defense aircraft and parts, which continue to be volatile this year, led the increase in durable goods orders, surging 48.4%, following July’s 0.6% bump. In August, the largest monthly decrease occurred in material handling equipment, which fell 5.7% after rising 2.6% the prior month. The largest over-the-year changes occurred in nondefense aircraft and parts (up 129.2%) and mining, oil field and gas field machinery (down 5.3%).

Factory shipments declined 0.1% in August, after stepping up 0.9% in July. Shipments over the year rose 1.1%. Shipments excluding transportation inched down 0.1% in August ,following a 0.5% gain the previous month. Shipments for durable goods fell 0.2% in August, following a 1.5% increase in July, and are up 2.5% year to date. Meanwhile, nondurable goods shipments decreased 0.1% after rising 0.3% the prior month and are down 0.2% year to date.

Unfilled orders for all manufacturing industries increased 0.6% in August, after remaining flat in July. Unfilled orders over the year jumped 7.7%. Inventories rose 1.4% year-over-year. The inventories-to-shipments ratio remained unchanged at 1.56 in August. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio for durable goods moved up to 6.93 in August from 6.86 in July.