Orders for Durable Goods Rise 0.2% in September

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rders for durable goods rose 0.2% in September, driven by demand for military equipment and computers, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

The increase to $195.7 billion was the third in the past four months and followed a 0.6% decline in August. Excluding transportation equipment orders rose 1.7% after a 2.8% increase.

Durable orders, which are goods made to last at least three years, are often looked to as an indicator of future factory activity. Factory activity drives demand for transportation services, particularly trucking, which hauls finished products and components to and from production plants.

Economists expected a 0.5% rise in orders, Bloomberg reported. Orders excluding transportation equip-ment were expected to increase 0.3% to $140.4 billion.

Commerce said orders for defense hardware jumped 26.5%, the most since June.

Meanwhile, bookings for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for future business invest-ment, rose 2.6% last month, the most since March. However, shipments, which the government uses to construct quarterly gross domestic product figures, fell 1.7%.

Orders for computers and electronic products rose 9.3%, the most since June 2000, Commerce said.

The report also said orders for transportation equipment fell 3.6%.