August Durable Goods Orders Flat at $338.6B as Core Capex Rises 1.6%

New orders for manufactured durable goods were virtually unchanged in August, slipping $0.1 billion to $338.6 billion after a 0.9% gain in July and ending a run of two consecutive monthly increases. The flat top line masks a clear split underneath. Transportation equipment orders fell, while orders excluding transportation rose 0.3% and the core capital goods measure, nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, climbed 1.6% to $87.6 billion. In a report whose headline routinely swings on aircraft bookings, August delivered a quiet total and a firmer underlying investment signal.

Headline Orders Held Flat as Transportation Dragged

Transportation equipment, down three of the last four months, drove the decrease, falling $0.7 billion or 0.6% to $114.1 billion. The category's internal moves were mixed:

• Nondefense aircraft and parts: -4.3%, giving back part of July's 12.0% jump
• Motor vehicles and parts: -0.6%
• Defense aircraft and parts: +5.9%

Defense capital goods, a category that includes defense aircraft and ships and so overlaps with transportation equipment, saw orders fall $0.3 billion or 1.5% to $21.5 billion. Excluding defense, total orders rose 0.1%. The gap between a flat headline and a 0.3% gain excluding transportation shows the softness was concentrated in vehicles and aircraft rather than spread across the factory sector.

Outside transportation, most major industries booked more business:

• Primary metals: +1.2%
• Machinery: +1.1%
• Electrical equipment, appliances and components: +1.1%
• Computers and electronic products: 0.0%
• Fabricated metal products: -1.3%

Measured against the series' own history of monthly changes, the headline move is noise: the 0.0 percent change registers at z = 0.1 sigma, and because the survey panel is not a probability sample, the Census Bureau reports that statistical significance is not measurable. On a year-over-year basis, durable goods orders are up 8.5%.

Core Capex Orders Keep Building

Nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft rose 1.6% in August to $87.6 billion, extending a run of monthly gains that included 0.6% in July and 1.7% in June. The series now stands 14.1% above its year-earlier level, and core orders have risen 5.2% since March. Against its own history, August's gain registers at z = 1.2 sigma: a solid move, not an outlier.

The trend matters more than any single print for this series, and the trend is pointing up. The pace of growth in core orders is accelerating rather than leveling off, which is the opposite of what a late-cycle pullback in equipment demand would look like. The broader nondefense capital goods category, which includes aircraft, rose $1.2 billion or 1.2% to $100.5 billion. That smaller gain than the core measure is consistent with the drop in commercial aircraft bookings.

These figures are adjusted for seasonal variation but not for price changes, so part of the increase reflects higher prices. Even so, a 14.1% nominal gain in core orders runs well ahead of the broad inflation backdrop, with core PCE prices up 3% from a year earlier.

Business Investment Signal

The capital goods detail points to businesses committing to capacity rather than retrenching. Machinery orders rose 1.1% and electrical equipment orders rose 1.1%, both categories that map directly onto factory and infrastructure spending. Other nondefense capital goods measures for August:

• Nondefense capital goods unfilled orders: up $5.0 billion or 0.5% to $956.7 billion
• Nondefense capital goods inventories: up $1.9 billion or 0.7% to $255.6 billion
• Nondefense capital goods shipments: down $1.2 billion or 1.3% to $95.5 billion

The one soft spot is that orders have not yet translated into faster industrial output. Industrial production posted a 0.0 percent change in August and is up 1.4% from a year earlier, a pace that trails the growth in core orders.

Shipments and the Order Pipeline

Shipments of manufactured durable goods fell $0.7 billion or 0.2% to $333.8 billion in August, ending a streak of eight consecutive monthly increases after a 0.9% July gain. Transportation equipment again drove the decline, with shipments down $2.0 billion or 1.8% to $109.5 billion, including an 8.6% drop in nondefense aircraft and parts shipments. Excluding transportation, shipments rose 0.6%, so realized revenue across the rest of the durable goods sector kept growing.

The pipeline data are the more constructive part of the report:

• Unfilled orders: up $9.8 billion or 0.6% to $1,609.4 billion, rising in twenty-five of the last twenty-six months
• Transportation equipment backlog: up $4.7 billion or 0.5% to $1,009.8 billion
• Unfilled orders excluding transportation: up 0.9%
• Inventories: up $3.0 billion or 0.5% to $608.1 billion, the eleventh consecutive monthly increase

A backlog that keeps growing while shipments pause signals sustained demand that has yet to be filled, not a demand shortfall. August figures for total manufacturing and nondurable goods are not part of this advance report; they arrive with the full factory orders release. Two technical points frame the numbers: new and unfilled orders exclude semiconductor manufacturing, and the Census Bureau has said that revised historical data and the M3 seasonal adjustment models will remain unchanged for the remainder of 2026. Neither disclosure points to a one-time disruption in August's figures.

GDP Implications

Core capital goods shipments, nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft, rose 0.6% to $85.0 billion in August, following gains of 1.4% in July and 2.4% in June. That sequence argues for a solid contribution from equipment spending in the third quarter, even as the broader nondefense capital goods shipments measure, which includes aircraft, fell 1.3%.

The backdrop is a growing economy. Nominal GDP rose 2.1% in the second quarter (a quarterly change, not annualized) to $32.6 trillion, the largest quarterly increase since April 2022, and is up 6.3% from a year earlier. August's durable goods report is consistent with that growth being maintained rather than slowing: core orders are accelerating, core shipments are rising, and the backlog continues to build, while the drag is confined to the volatile transportation category.

The next test comes on October 2, 2026, when the Census Bureau publishes revised durable goods detail alongside nondurable goods data. The key figure there is whether the 1.6% gain in core capital goods orders survives revision. The September advance report follows on October 27, 2026, and the data point that will confirm or contradict the capex upturn is core capital goods shipments: another gain would lock in a firm third-quarter equipment investment contribution, while a reversal would suggest August's orders strength has yet to reach the investment accounts.