An appliance store in Midwest City, Oklahoma. Photographer: Nick Oxford/Bloomberg.
U.S. orders for durable goods increased in November by the most in six months, boosted by bookings for commercial aircraft and other capital equipment. Orders for durable goods—items meant to last at least three years—rose 5.3 percent, after a revised 2.1 percent decline in October, according to a Commerce Department report that was delayed by the federal government shutdown.
The data out today also shows that the value of core capital goods orders, a proxy for investment in equipment that excludes aircraft and military hardware, increased a larger-than-forecast 0.7 percent. Meanwhile, bookings for commercial aircraft, which are volatile from month to month, rose nearly 98 percent in November.
The Commerce Department report shows core capital goods shipments, which excludes planes and military hardware to reduce volatility, rose 0.4 percent. Economists prefer the core equipment shipments figure to gauge underlying investment because there is a delay between orders and actual shipments.
The report shows a broad increase in durable goods bookings, including orders for communications equipment, computers, machinery, and electrical equipment.
| Metric | Actual | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Durable goods orders | +5.3% | +3.8% |
| Capital goods orders, excluding defense & aircraft | +0.7% | +0.3% |
| Capital goods shipments, excluding defense & aircraft | +0.4% | +0.3% |
Economists expect business investment to pick up this year as companies take advantage of tax provisions from President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act enacted last year. Outside of investment in artificial intelligence (AI), companies may be growing more comfortable with spending, as uncertainty about trade policy and concerns about demand diminish.
"While uncertainty is far from eliminated, executives appear to have reached the point where they have enough information to move forward," Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander U.S. Capital Markets LLC, said in a note. "The robust core capital goods orders and shipments figures for the second half of last year suggest that momentum in business investment has been building heading into 2026."
After the durables report, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's GDPNow forecast anticipated a slight decrease in business equipment outlays for the fourth quarter.
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