July durables orders surprisingly strong

Wednesday August 27, 9:07 am ET By Mark Felsenthal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods jumped a surprising 1.3 percent in July, while a gauge of business investment also rose unexpectedly, a government report showed on Wednesday.
Orders for durable goods, items meant to last three years or more, were up after an upwardly revised 1.3 percent gain in June, the Commerce Department said. Analysts were expecting durables orders to remain unchanged from the previous month.
Stock futures rose and the dollar strengthened in foreign exchange trading against the euro, while U.S. Treasury debt prices slipped on the report.
"This bodes well for capital spending in the third quarter," said Matthew Moore, economic strategist at Banc of America Securities in New York. "It doesn't seem like the credit crisis is impacting capital spending."
Transportation orders rose 3.1 percent in July, the largest gain since February, on a 28 percent rise in civilian aircraft orders.
Orders for machinery and primary and fabricated metals rose, while demand for computers and appliances waned.
Even when volatile transportation orders were stripped out, demand for durables rose 0.7 percent. Analysts had expected a 0.5 percent drop in durables orders excluding transportation.
Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, seen as a barometer of business spending, jumped 2.6 percent, the steepest gain since April. Analysts were expecting that category to decline by 0.1 percent.
(Additional reporting by Walden Siew in New York, Editing by Andrea Ricci)